1972 -- The Munich massacre was an attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, on eleven Israeli Olympic team members, who were taken hostage and eventually killed, along with a German police officer, by the Palestinian group Black September. Shortly after the crisis began, they demanded 234 prisoners jailed in Israel and the German-held founders of the Red Army Faction (Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof) be released. Black September called the operation Iqrit and Biram after two Palestinian Christian villages whose inhabitants were expelled by the Haganah in 1948. German neo-Nazis apparently gave the attackers logistical assistance. Police officers killed five of the eight Black September members during a failed rescue attempt. They captured the three survivors, who West Germany later released following a Lufthansa airliner hijacking. Mossad responded to the release with Operation Spring of Youth and Operation Wrath of God, systematically tracking down and killing Palestinians suspected of involvement in the massacre.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 04:23:52 +0000