title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: On Thursday, October 10, 1985, U.S. President Reagan, while on a tour promoting his tax-overhaul plan, at a planeside news conference at O'Hare International Airport, told reporters it would be "all right" for the PLO if Arafat has "kind of a national court set up, like a nation that they can bring them to justice." The President's aides realized that this would be tantamount to recognizing the PLO as a legitimate government which would be a reversal of the current policy that named it as a terrorist organization. At the next stop, national security affairs adviser Robert "Bud" McFarlane told the press that Reagan "meant that he wants the PLO to turn these hijackers over to competent authority for trial." Minutes later, and less than an hour after his initial comments, Reagan held another question-and-answer session with the press, saying "I really believe that the PLO, if the hijackers are in their custody, should turn them over to a sovereign state that would have jurisdiction and could prosecute them as the murderers they are." Administration officials (implying that the hijackers were also guilty of piracy) said the president's position was complicated due to uncertainty if the pirates had been released to the PLO or were still in Egypt. Later speaking to reporters at a stop to tour the kitchens of Sara Lee, Reagan said on the issue "apparently there's a little confusion, and maybe I'm responsible." He said he had "not meant to imply" that the PLO should try the hijackers.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: When Abbas had ordered the hijackers to return the ship to Port Said, and the ship's captain had radioed Egyptian port officials – the problem fell onto Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak. The Egyptian government had competing interests he was attempting to balance. Mubarak wanted to maintain Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, the 1978 Camp David Accords, but also keep good relations with its fellow Arab states in the Middle East. The Israeli bombing of the PLO's Tunis headquarters the previous week had left many innocent Tunisians killed or wounded, adding to the pressures on Mubarak. He also wanted to maintain good relations with the US to not jeopardize billions of dollars in foreign aid.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Mubarak decided to try to get the hijackers out of Egypt quickly. He thought this would work because of the recent previous precedent where the U.S. had "made no claims on the hijackers" of the TWA airliner earlier that summer. Additionally President Reagan had told the media that it would be "all right" if the PLO put the hijackers on trial. Mubarak's main impetus for his decision was Captain De Rosa's false report of no casualties. The Egyptian Government had intervened solely for humanitarian reasons to secure the release of the hostages and the vessel. Egypt had no normal basis for jurisdiction as the ship was of Italian registry, carried no Egyptian passengers, none of the hijackers were Egyptian, and their actions were outside Egyptian territorial limits. The Egyptian Government decided to honor its agreement to allow the Palestinians access to a plane to travel to a place of safety.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The Egyptian government had given PLO officials in Tunisia 48 hours to take control of the four hijackers in Egypt. Arafat had told the Egyptians that he needed time to find a nation that they could take the four for trial. If the PLO could not find a cooperative nation, Egypt would release the men or turn them over to Italy. The PLO did not feel anxious about the agreement, one of its officials saying "Italy is a friend of ours, so it's no problem." The PLO also asserted that the four were not PLO members but only a part of the PLF. Some in the International community, such as the US, held that this was a common tactic by Arafat. Holding that when one of the PLO's constituent groups committed an act of violence, he would claim that the group was rebelling from PLO control and beyond his control or influence.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: PLO official Farouk Kaddoumi also said that the claim that Kilinghoffer had been murdered was "a big lie fabricated by the intelligence service of the United States." At a United Nations meeting in New York, he suggested to the UN Security Council that Klinghoffer might have died naturally, "Is there any evidence that those hijackers had killed the civilian? Where is the evidence?"


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The Reagan administration sent a series of urgent messages to Cairo, urging the Egyptians to swiftly turn over the hijackers for prosecution either to Italy or the US. Reagan approved of a draft message to be sent on his personal behalf to Mubarak stating the same was to be delivered by Ambassador Veliotes. Apparently seeking to avoid having to lie directly to the Americans, Mubarak refused to see Veliotes and also refused to take calls from George Shultz.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: On October 11, the day after the hijackers had disembarked the ship, Mubarak lied to the media when asked about them saying they had left within hours of coming ashore, "They have actually left Egypt. I do not know exactly where they have gone. Perhaps they have left for Tunisia." His foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid reiterated the same message "They left Egypt. I know where they are, but I am not going to tell you." Mubarak would also falsely insist that the hijackers had left Egypt before he had information about Captain De Rosa's correction, "If the captain had told us that a passenger had been killed, we would have changed our position toward the whole operation. But when this [news of the murder] emerged, we already had sent the hijackers out of the country." Mubarak also repeated the suggestion that no one had been killed "There is no body and no proof he has been murdered. Maybe the man is hiding or did not board the ship at all." At the time of Mubarak's statements to the news media, the U.S. Administration had already received intelligence information that the hijackers were still in Egypt.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Learning of the murder of a U.S. citizen, fearing the escape of the hijackers, and desiring a victory over terrorism, the Reagan administration ordered the EgyptAir passenger jet carrying the hijackers out of Egypt to be forced to land so the perpetrators could be brought to justice.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: On the morning of Thursday, October 10, 1985, Oliver North had contacted Israeli Major General Uri Simhoni, the military attaché at the Israeli embassy in Washington. (Simhoni had been helpful in giving information that helped locate the "Achille Lauro" during the hijacking.) He relayed to North that the four hijackers were at the Almaza Air Base near Cairo. Later that morning American sources confirmed the information and added that the Egyptians were planning to transport the men out of the country at night, presumably to Tunis, aboard a commercial EgyptAir jet. James R. Stark realized that due to ongoing disputes that Egypt had with Libya and Chad that the plane would most likely fly over the Mediterranean sea which raised the option of intercepting it with U.S. Navy fighters. Stark recalled that during World War II, American fighters had acted on intelligence to intercept Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto and advocated a similar action (with a forced landing rather than shooting the aircraft down). Due to anticipated political problems the idea of forcing the plane to land in either Israel or Cyprus was dismissed. The NATO base at Sigonella, Italy, was chosen.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: North and Stark passed the idea onto John Poindexter who agreed with it and called Robert McFarlane who was traveling with Reagan to run the idea past the President. Reagan, speaking with employees of Chicago's Sara Lee bakery, was informed of the option along with potential problems (such as finding the correct EgyptAir jet and possibly damaging relations with Egypt and Italy).


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: A desire for successful assertive action against terrorism in the Reagan administration was further spurred by the memory of the political cost borne by President Jimmy Carter for a lack of the same (his inability to free American hostages seized by student demonstrators in Iran was held to have been a major factor in his failed 1980 reelection bid). Despite covert CIA searches, the Reagan administration had also been frustrated in its inability to find American hostages held in the Lebanon hostage crisis that had begun in 1982, nor had they had an opportunity for decisive action in the recent TWA hijacking.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: After listening to the idea of intercepting the EgyptAir jet, Reagan approved the operation in principle in what was called the "Sara Lee decision". Reagan's decision style was to reflect the broad-brush issues and leave details to his staff, and Poindexter was tasked with fulfilling the president's decision. North was to remain in contact with Simhoni for any situational changes regarding the hijackers. Poindexter called Vice Admiral Art Moreau (then serving as assistant to Admiral William J. Crowe – the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). Poindexter, on behalf of the president, told Moreau that Crowe was to start planning an intercept mission.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Communications for planning began between the Pentagon, U.S. military headquarters in Europe, and the Navy's Sixth Fleet. Progress on difficulties (such as how to force the airliner to land or if weapons could be fired in warning) proceeded quickly, largely due to a lack of criticism from Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who had developed a reputation for objecting to "incidental" use of armed forces. Upon learning of the idea while traveling in Ottawa, Canada, Weingberger objected, telling Crowe on a phone call "That's a terrible idea. I'm dead set against it, interfering with a civilian aircraft. We'll be castigated all over the world." He told Crowe to "stop everything" and then called President Reagan in Air Force One to argue against the idea. Speaking to the president on an open, unencrypted radio channel Weinberger listed reasons to abort the plan. This discussion later became public because it was monitored by a ham radio operator. The operator revealed to the press that Reagan had not been convinced by his defense secretary and ordered him to make it happen.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The final go-ahead was given by Reagan late that afternoon while returning to Washington on Air Force One. McFarlane contacted Poindexter who alerted the Pentagon. Orders were sent across the Atlantic to the aircraft carrier USS "Saratoga" and her aircraft made ready for the intercept.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: On October 10, 1985, the four hijackers boarded an EgyptAir Boeing 737 accompanied by Abu Abbas, Ozzuddin Badrakkan (also called Mohammed Oza – he served as chief of PLF military operations and was a PLO official), and several members of Egypt's counterterrorism unit Force 777. The flight was set to fly to Tunisia, which was where the PLF headquarters were located. The airliner took off from Cairo at 4:15 p.m. EST.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The "Saratoga" was the flagship of a Sixth Fleet task force commanded by Rear Admiral David E. Jeremiah. It had just finished participating in a NATO exercise and was headed for Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, when late in the evening it received the orders from commander of the Sixth Fleet, Vice Admiral Frank Kelso, and reversed course along with the rest of its group.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The "Saratoga" had been following the news of the "Achille Lauro" and had earlier tried to help locate it by dispatching aircraft, but the new orders came as a surprise to Jeremiah. He was to locate and intercept a commercial jet with the hijackers onboard coming out of Egypt but he did not know what time, which jet, nor its origin. Jeremiah sent out F-14 Tomcat fighters along with an E-2C Hawkeye early-warning aircraft which carried a special radar that allowed its crew to track all aircraft within hundreds of miles. The operation would only be successful if the Hawkeye's crew could find the Egyptian airliner.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The "Saratoga" launched several planes from Carrier Air Wing 17 (CVW-17) – four Grumman F-14 Tomcats (two belonging to VF-74 Be-Devilers and two belonging to VF-103 Sluggers), one Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye (belonging to VAW-125 Tiger Tails), two Grumman A-6 Intruders (belonging to VA-85 Black Falcons) and one Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler (belonging to VAQ-137 Rooks). Additionally, another E-2C, three more F-14s and two electronic intelligence aircraft (a Boeing RC-135 and a Douglas A-3 Skywarrior) joined the mission. The flight operation was planned by Robert "Bubba" Brodzky.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Before the Tomcats could be launched they had to have their radar-guided missiles removed and simpler weapons, including tracer bullets, installed. Around this time, Israeli intelligence agents found that the plane carrying the hijackers was an EgyptAir Boeing 737, flight 2843. They also determined its tail number and departure time. The information was passed onto Oliver North, relayed to the Pentagon, who relayed it to the Sixth Fleet, who relayed it to the "Saratoga". The Hawkeye crew received the information before taking off.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Ralph Zia, commanding officer of the Hawkeye, monitored the airways designated for commercial jets focusing on a converge point south of Crete. He and his crew tracked radar contacts flying west out of Egypt, presumably towards Tunisia. Zia had to send a Tomcat to visually determine if the contact was an EgyptAir 737, as there was no sensor that would confirm the exact identity of each radar blip. The fighter jets were commanded to perform the operation with lights out.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Steve Weatherspoon, one of the Tomcat fighter pilots later recalled that the nighttime intercepts were not overly difficult. "It wasn't a big deal. We got a good radar picture that safely controlled the intercept, and pulled close enough to get a visual identification. As we slowly closed, either we illuminated the aircraft with the glow of our exterior position lights or tried to make out a silhouette by starlight. If its shape was similar to a 737, we had to get closer to see the carrier or national markings."


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Two of the blips checked on by the Tomcats were U.S. Air Force Lockheed C-141 Starlifter transport planes flying without lights. They were carrying Major General Stiner and his special operations troops who had been set to storm the "Achille Lauro". They were now being moved to Sigonella to capture the hijackers should the Navy jets succeed at their mission.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: After approaching between six and eight aircraft without finding the airliner, Weatherspoon and the pilot of the other Tomcat (William Roe "Skid" Massey) were instructed by Zia to approach another aircraft. Massey saw that the plane was a 737, his Radar Intercept Officer in the backseat, Dennis "Doc" Plautz, saw that it had an EgyptAir logo. Shining a flashlight on the fuselage they made out the tail number "SU-AYK" (Massey was able to close to within 15 feet of the Boeing 737 to read its registration). A radio call to the "Saratoga" confirmed that this was the correct plane. The time was 5:30 p.m. EST.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Unknowingly being shadowed by Tomcats, the EgyptAir Boeing 737 sought permission to land at Tunis but was refused. A request for permission to land at Athens was also refused.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The Hawkeye had directed additional Tomcats to close with the airliner, and it began to communicate with the Boeing 737 on a VHF frequency demanding it divert to Sigonella, Italy. When the pilot of the EgyptAir Boeing 737 refused to comply, the Hawkeye gave the command to the Tomcats "Lights on, now!" With the illumination of the American aircraft, the Egyptian pilot suddenly realized he was surrounded by warplanes. The Hawkeye relayed to the Boeing that one way or another they must reach Sigonella. The Egyptian pilot later reported that the American fighter pilots had ordered him to comply with their commands or be shot down. He also stated that the military jets were in such close proximity that he had to request that they give him more room to safely maneuver.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The airliner, flying wing-to-wing with several of the Tomcats, complied with the order to divert to Sigonella, touching down at 6:45 p.m. EST.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The American position had hardened with news of the murder and it was ascertained that the PLO did not have plans to try the terrorists, rather they were being flown to a place of asylum. It was further discovered that the negotiator, Abbas, had actually been the mastermind behind the hijacking. This discovery also threw Arafat's claims of authority within a fractious PLO into question for the Americans and raised questions of his own culpability. Reagan viewed Egypt's allowing the terrorists safe passage to asylum as an unfriendly act when he had ordered the US military to intercept the Egyptian plane.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Minutes after the 737 touched down, two United States Air Force C-141 cargo planes landed with counter terrorist members of SEAL Team Six who quickly surrounded the airplane at the airstrip as it came to a halt. The Seals were prepared to assault the aircraft and secure the terrorists. With the 737 safely on the ground in Sigonella the Navy warplanes had closed the airspace overhead for all incoming aircraft.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Stiner called the Egyptian pilot on the radio, telling him that his plane was now in the custody of the US military. The pilot informed Stiner that an Egyptian ambassador was aboard and wanted to speak with him. A ladder was lowered from the forward door and the pilot, Captain Amed Moneeb, descended followed by Egyptian diplomat Zeid Imad Hamed. SEAL Team SIX commanding officer Robert A. Gormly met them and examined Hamed's credentials. Finding them in order, he escorted Hamed into the base and let him phone Egypt's foreign minister.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Stiner then boarded the plane with an officer from SEAL Team Six. They found the four terrorists, Abbas, and Badrakkan onboard being guarded by ten commandos of the Egyptian Army's elite Unit 777. Though Stiner had orders to arrest the terrorists, he made no attempt to do so at that time.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Sigonella was an Italian Air Force base in Sicily, which housed a U.S. Navy installation (N.A.S.). The American special forces had surrounded the airplane, but soon found themselves surrounded by Italian Air Force soldiers and Carabinieri military police. The Italian organizations insisted that Italy had territorial rights over the base and jurisdiction over the hijackers. A standoff between the SEAL team and the Italian military began.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The choice of the Sigonella base to divert the EgyptAir 737 that had the hijackers of the "Achille Lauro" aboard caused a dispute between the governments of the US and Italy and included elements of their militaries.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: On the orders of U.S. president Ronald Reagan and secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger, the Egyptian airliner carrying the hijackers was intercepted by F-14 Tomcats from the VF-74 "BeDevilers" and the VF-103 "Sluggers" of Carrier Air Wing 17, based on the aircraft carrier USS "Saratoga", and directed to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella (an Italian NATO air base in Sicily under joint Italian-American military utilization).


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The choice of Sigonella became problematic for the Americans as they had no jurisdiction, and the Italians were not consulted regarding its use for this operation.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The Egyptian flight, having been authorized by its government, was lawful under international law. The Egyptian government protested the American interception of its plane, which was not legal under international law. Egypt's arguments were somewhat diminished by its own previous justification for its 1978 raid at Locna airport in Cyprus. Not only had the Americans not received consent from the Italians to forcibly land a non-hostile plane flying in compliance with international law at Sigonella, but the American military action was taken solely for American purposes (not those of the NATO alliance) and was taken in order to secure criminals – this was in violation of the purely joint military purposes that the Italians had agreed to when deciding to share the utilization of the base.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: A standoff occurred when 20 Carabinieri and 30 VAM (Vigilanza Aeronautica Militare) of the Italian Air Force contested for control of the plane with the 80 armed operatives of the U.S. Delta Force and SEAL Team Six. These contesting groups were soon surrounded by 300 additional armed Carabinieri (the Italian military police) who had also blocked off the runway with their trucks. The Italian Air Force (VAM) personnel and Carabinieri had already been lining up facing the US special forces soon after the American's main contingent had arrived by C-141s. Other Carabinieri had been sent from Catania and Syracuse as reinforcement. These events became known as the Sigonella Crisis.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Stiner and Gormly contacted the Pentagon to inform them of the situation, and this information was passed onto the Reagan Administration. Members of the president's staff told the Italian government that the US special-operations team intended to arrest the hijackers. The Italians dismissed the Americans' claim of the right to do so, maintaining that the matter fell within their own jurisdiction due to the ship sailing under an Italian flag.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: A phone call took place between President Reagan and the Prime Minister Craxi. Craxi claimed Italian territorial rights over the NATO base. Reagan informed Craxi that the US would seek extradition of the terrorists to face charges in US courts.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Stiner and his men, standing eyeball-to-eyeball with the 360 armed Italians, relayed to the Pentagon "I am not worried about our situation. We have the firepower to prevail. But I am concerned about the immaturity of the Italian troops... A backfire from a motorbike or a construction cart could precipitate a shooting incident that could lead to a lot of Italian casualties. And I don't believe that our beef is with our ally, the Italians, but rather with the terrorists." The American leadership in Washington concluded that while Stiner and his men could take the terrorists it was unlikely they would be able to get them out of Italy. By 4:00 a.m. CET the next day, orders arrived for Stiner and his men to stand down.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: After five hours of negotiations, and with the knowledge that the Italian troops had orders (confirmed by President Francesco Cossiga) to use lethal force if necessary to block the Americans from leaving with prisoners, the U.S. conceded the Italian claim of jurisdiction over the terrorists. The Americans received assurances that the hijackers would be tried for murder and Stiner and three US officials were to remain at the airport to witness the arrest of the terrorists by Italian authorities.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: After the U.S. turned over control of the 737 to Italy, Egyptian diplomat Hamed returned to the plane with Italian base commander Colonel Annicchiarico. Hamed told the men of Unit 777 that the Egyptian government had agreed to turn over the hijackers to the Italians. Both Abbas and Badrakkan refused to leave the plane claiming diplomatic rights – maintaining that they had diplomatic immunity as representatives of the PLO and Arafat. Learning of this the Egyptian government changed its position, declaring that the two were on board an Egyptian aircraft on a government mission – thus accruing extraterritorial rights. Egypt requested Italy let the plane leave with the two men on board as they had been brought to Italy against their will. When the Italians refused this demand the Egyptians denied "Achille Lauro" permission to leave Port Said.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Prime Minister Craxi sent his personal foreign affairs advisor Antonio Badini to interview Abbas after boarding the airliner. Abbas' account held he had been sent by Arafat due to his persuasive argumentation style, that the four Palestinians had been triggered by panic to stage the hijacking, and that the decisive role in releasing the passengers was his alone. Craxi appeared at a press conference late on Friday, October 11, acknowledging the role the two played in ending the hijacking, but inviting them to provide "useful testimony" and turning the matter over to the Italian court system.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: After continued talks between Italy and Egypt, the four hijackers were eventually removed from the 737, arrested by the Italian Carabinieri at Sigonella, and taken to the air base jail, then transferred to a local prison. The public magistrate in Syracuse announced late on the 11th that his inquires were complete and EgyptAir 2843 could depart for Rome with Badrakkan and Abbas aboard. Craxi saw this as a stalling tactic that was a courtesy to the U.S. The Italian foreign ministry contacted the U.S. embassy and informed them of the flight, saying that the two wanted to consult with the PLO office in Rome. The Americans viewed this as a prelude to Abbas being released. The 737 was then cleared by the Italians to fly to Rome's Ciampino airport with Abbas and Badrakkan still aboard.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: U.S. Major General Stiner, in command of the American Special Operations Forces at Sigonella, upon learning that the 737 had been cleared by the Italians to proceed to Rome with members of the PLF still onboard, became concerned that there was no guarantee that once airborne it would travel to Rome rather than back to Cairo. He boarded a T-39 Navy executive jet (the North American Sabreliner) with other American Special Operations personnel and planned to shadow the 737. When the Egyptian airliner took off from Sigonella at 10:00 p.m. the T-39 was not granted clearance from that runway. In response the Americans used a parallel runway without Italian permission.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: In response to the unauthorized act by Stiner and the Americans, the Italian Air Force sent in two Aeritalia F-104S Starfighter warplanes of the 36° Stormo (Wing) from Gioia del Colle. These were soon joined by two more F-104s from Grazzanise airbase. In response to the Italian action, other warplanes (that have never been publicly identified but are assumed to have been American F-14 Tomcats) came up behind the Italian jets. The Italian jets also found their radar jammed above the Tyrrhenian Sea, assumingely by a U.S. Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler. National Security Council staffer Michael K. Bohn in the White House Situation Room at the time, later recalled "Pilots on board the U.S. and Italian jets exchanged colorful epithets over the radio about their respective intentions, family heritage, and sexual preferences." Once the 737 approached Rome, the formation of U.S. Naval fighters, turned back – only the T-39 with U.S. special operations forces continued to Ciampino airport.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The Italian air-traffic controllers at Ciampino denied the T-39 permission to land, but the US pilot claimed there was an "inflight emergency" which gave him an automatic right to land the jet.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: This American violation of operating in Italian airspace and landing in a Roman airport without overflight or landing permissions was seen by the Italians as an affront to their laws and safety regulations and negatively influenced diplomatic relations between the countries for some time. Diplomatic relations with Egypt also were negatively impacted as they continued to demand an apology from the U.S. for forcing the airplane off course.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The question of what should happen to Abu Abbas became complicated due to competing international pressures.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: With Israeli intelligence proving that Abbas was the mastermind behind the hijacking, the U.S. Justice Department sought to deliver a warrant for his arrest to Rome that complied with the requirements of the U.S.–Italy extradition treaty. If such a warrant could be produced, Italy, in compliance with the treaty, would be required to hold Abbas for 45 days. As the Justice Department sought to avoid revealing Israeli classified intelligence information they began working with the Israeli embassy in Washington and officials in Tel Aviv to produce a declassified version that was strengthened with U.S. information. The Justice Department then petitioned Judge Charles R. Richey of the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC who issued warrants for Abbas and the hijackers.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The Situation Room transmitted a message from President Reagan to Prime Minister Craxi about holding Abbas and reminded him of the obligations under the extradition treaty. Attorney General Edwin Meese called his Italian counterpart Mino Martinazzoli informing him of the arrest warrants. The FBI notified Italian law enforcement agencies of the warrants. Maxwell Rabb, U.S. Ambassador to Italy delivered the warrants to Salvatore Zhara Buda of the Italian Ministry of Justice at his home at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 12.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The Reagan Administration shared transcripts of radio conversations that took place between the hijackers and Abbas (along with other evidence obtained by the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency) to indicate that he had remained close to the ship and directed the hijacking.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Within hours of Rabb's early morning visit to his home, Buda met with three judges from the Ministry of Justice to review the petition. The group then advised Craxi and Martinazzoli that the documents did not support a provisional arrest of Abbas. Craxi later announced that the Justice Ministry held that the U.S. request did not "satisfy the factual and substantive requirements laid down by Italian law", so there was no legal basis to hold him any longer as he was on board an aircraft that had extraterritorial status.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: While most in the Reagan administration were shocked by Italy's decision, Nicholas Veliotes in Cairo was not. To him, the document had obvious signs of Israeli Mossad involvement, a fact he anticipated would not please the Italians.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Craxi and his cabinet met at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday to discuss Italy's situation. Not only was the American situation clear, but Rabb interrupted the meeting with a personal plea from Reagan to hold Abbas. Craxi weighed whether Italy should upset the senior member of NATO or undermine its relatively good relations among Middle East nations.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Egypt's President Mubarak was already lashing out at American arrogance and Italy's assistance in the affair. It continued to demand that Italy return its plane and Abbas, and seemed to be holding "Achille Lauro" as ransom for their return. The Egyptian populace was irate at the American action and Craxi worried that if the U.S. wound up with Abbas an outraged Egyptian populace might turn against Mubarak for caving in the face of pressure.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Italy also had something approaching rapprochement with the PLO that kept its terrorists away from Italian citizens and interests. This was a result of a 1973 deal made between Italy and the PLO after an attack on an airport in Rome. The PLO would not target Italians in exchange for Italian acquiescence of its objectives. Arafat was able to contact Craxi warning him that "uncontrollable actions could result" if Abbas was turned over to the U.S.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: In support of the American position was Defense Minister Spadolini along with the provincial magistrate who had authorized the jailing of the four hijackers. He was joined in his opinion on the U.S. request by a judge in Rome. (Normally, provincial magistrates are the first to adjudicate extradition requests.)


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: After consideration, Craxi and his cabinet voted to permit Abbas to depart from Italy. The Italian foreign ministry informed the Egyptian and American ambassadors of the decision.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Italy had decided that there was insufficient evidence to link Abbas to the hijacking and rejected a preliminary request from the U.S. that Italy hold him. A standing agreement between Italy and the U.S. that allowed suspects to be temporarily detained regardless of evidence was also put aside. Abraham Sofaer, a State Department legal adviser, complained to reporters that the Italians had rushed a decision on Abbas despite America's promise shortly before that even more proof would be provided to link Abbas to the hijackers.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Following a deal made with Yasser Arafat with Giulio Andreotti even before the Craxi government had made its final decision, Abbas and Badrakkan, wearing unidentified uniforms, had been put back on the EgyptAir 737 airliner. They were joined by Egyptian diplomat Zeid Imad Hamed who had been with them in their initial flight from Cairo. Hamed had arranged for JAT, a Yugoslav national airline, to take the men from Fiumicino (Rome's main airport) to Belgrade. With no objections from Craxi, at 5:30 p.m. EgyptAir flight 2843 flew the 10 minutes from Ciampino airport to Fiumicino. Abbas and Badrakkan left the Egyptian plane, walked across the ramp escorted by Italian security forces and embarked on the Yugoslav aircraft. They left for Belgrade, Yugoslavia, at 7:10 p.m., Saturday, October 12, 1985.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The next day, on October 13, the U.S. lodged a protest over Italy's allowing Abbas to depart and also requested his extradition from Yugoslavia (which diplomatically recognized the PLO). According to Abraham Sofaer, a State Department legal adviser, before the plane carrying Abbas to Yugoslavia even touched down, the Reagan Administration gave Yugoslav authorities the intelligence information it had passed onto the Italian government, along with "the transcripts and the hard evidence that we have accumulated in the 24 or 48 hours since then." The Yugoslav government rejected the U.S. petition, saying it was legally groundless, and complained about the USS "Saratoga"'s participation in the capture of the hijackers. By October 14, Tanyug, the Yugoslav press agency, and PLO officials within Yugoslavia announced that Abbas had left Yugoslavia. The U.S. State Department released a statement declaring "extreme disappointment" that Yugoslav authorities had denied their request.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Egyptian President Mubarak continued his demand for a personal apology from U.S. President Reagan for intercepting the EgyptAir flight. There had been no contact between him and the Reagan administration around the interception and he had learned of it from the news media. He told reporters the incident was "unheard of under any international law or code," and that "I am very wounded. Now there is coolness and strain as a result of this incident."


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Mubarak also told reporters the incident was "strange and regrettable... When I heard of it, I said, 'What piracy is this?' I never thought that a friendly country would send four jetfighters to intercept an unarmed civilian plane. I was amazed. I believe it is theatrics and not heroism." Reflecting on U.S. relations with Egypt he said "May God help us to get over this matter. A long time must pass before we will be able to forget this painful wound." Outside Egypt's Cairo University thousands of demonstrators shouting anti-Israeli and anti-American slogans clashed with police – at least 30 were injured and dozens arrested. Some demonstrators called for Mubarak's assassination.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: There became a concern in the U.S. that Mubarak believed that he had been publicly humiliated by the U.S. and would move toward reconciliation with other Arab states at the cost of relations with Israel and the U.S., which was seen as being detrimental to Middle East peace efforts and perhaps even another Arab-Israeli war. An unnamed Egyptian source told the New York Times "Reagan has humiliated Mubarak and in the Arab world that is unheard of if you are supposed to be a friend."


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: U.S. State Department spokesman Charles E. Redman told reporters "What is important now is to put it behind us and concentrate on the larger issues, especially our shared commitment to peace in the Middle East." When asked by a reporter if the U.S. had any reason to apologize for the diversion of the airliner, he replied "Never." White House spokesman Larry Speakes stated that while the U.S. would work to restore good relations with Egypt there was to be no apology, "We've said everything we need to say." During the incident the U.S. praised Egypt's efforts to save the lives of the hostages, never criticized Mubarak personally, but did make it clear that they were displeased by Egypt's "independent" decision to give the hijackers safe passage. Speakes told reporters at the time "The United States wants to emphasize the fundamental and durable interest that the United States and Egypt share, interests which transcends this difficult incident." Mubarak described what the U.S. had done as a "stab in the back". The Reagan administration sent a diplomatic envoy led by Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead to Egypt for a "thorough and friendly discussion" telling Mubarak that they hoped to "put our recent differences behind us."


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz met with Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti voicing the American unhappiness with Italy's treatment of Abbas. Shultz also rejected a reporter’s suggestion that the U.S. interception was itself an act of terrorism. State Department spokesman Redman also said that despite the U.S. unhappiness with the actions of the Craxi government, U.S. relations with Italy remained close "We want to preserve the good, overall relations, which are based on shared interests which transcend this incident."


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: On October 17, 1985, Craxi's 26-month-old Italian Socialist-led government fell due to Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini's Republican Party withdrawing from the five-party coalition the day before out of displeasure of Craxi's allowing Abbas to escape. Spadolini insisted that Craxi had not consulted him in the decision to let Abbas go free.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The actions of Syria during the hijacking were seen as a positive by the U.S. with State Department spokesman Redman praising Damascus for its help in determining if a body that washed ashore was that of Klinghoffer.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The U.S. also praised the Tunisian Government for refusing to allow the EgyptAir jet landing rights. Relations between the two governments had become frosty when the U.S. categorized the Israeli attack on the PLO headquarters on October 1, 1985, where 12 Tunisians were slain, as an action against a "terrorist sanctuary" which caused the Tunisians to say relations were "irreparable". The U.S. not vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution that condemned Israel for the raid was seen as an attempt to improve relations.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: On October 15, 1985, the Reagan Administration told reporters that a partially decomposed body that had washed up on the Syrian coast with a bullet hole in the skull fired from above was that of Leon Klinghoffer. At the time the four hijackers, Yasser Arafat, and Farouk Kaddoumi all continued to claim that no one had been murdered during the hijacking.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The Administration announced that they would be convening a Federal grand jury to consider an indictment against the four hijackers and Abu Abbas who was believed to have fled to South Yemen (a pro-Soviet Arab nation with no diplomatic relations to the U.S.).


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: There were several stages of court and legal actions taken against the hijackers of the "Achille Lauro" and Abu Abbas.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The U.S. had originally planned to charge the terrorists with piracy under its Criminal Code of 1909 "whoever, on the high seas, commits the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations, and is afterwards brought into or found in the United States, shall be imprisoned for life." But this would have been problematic as the U.S. recognized international law on the matter, specifically the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention that stated "a seizure of a ship for political purposes is not considered piracy".


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Due to the murder, the U.S. could claim jurisdiction under the passive personality principle and try the terrorists under its Crimes Act of 1790 (although its Supreme Court had questioned in "U.S. v. Palmer" (1818) if the act extended to non-citizens). However, with the suspects turned over to Italian hands, to try the terrorists the U.S. would have had to use the normal processes of extradition. Even had the Americans done so, Italy could have easily claimed its own right of jurisdiction as primary as the ship flew under an Italian flag, began its voyage in Italy, and the terrorists had come aboard in an Italian port.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: In the view of the Italian courts it was of no significance that the suspects found themselves in Italy's jurisdiction through no choice of their own, especially as there had been no wrongful act by Italian authorities.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: On July 10, 1986, an Italian court ruled the Palestinians guilty of "carrying out a kidnap with terrorist intent, leading to the death of a hostage". The court did not refer to the hijackers as terrorists, rather calling them "soldiers fighting for their ideals". Three of the hijackers were sentenced to prison terms ranging from fifteen to thirty years. While Youssef Majed Molqi (the hijacker who had shot Klinghoffer) received one of the longest sentences of the group, the court cited the conditions of his childhood growing up surrounded by violence in a Palestinian refugee camp as a mitigating circumstance.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Another group of three Palestinians received sentences between six months and seven and a half years. The court ruled that Abbas had been the organizer and he and two of his colleagues received life sentences in absentia. Three others were acquitted on the grounds that they had not been properly identified in the indictment.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: The hijackers received lighter punishments because it was held by the court that they were acting on "patriotic motives", while Abbas and the planners had engaged in a "selfish political act" meant "to weaken the leadership of Yasser Arafat." The fourth hijacker was a minor at the time of the seizing of the "Achille Lauro" and was separately tried and convicted.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Marilyn Klinghoffer only learned the truth after the hijackers left the ship at Port Said. PLO Foreign Secretary Farouq Qaddumi later denied that the hijackers were responsible for the murder, and suggested that Marilyn had killed her husband for insurance money. Over a decade later, in April 1996, PLF leader Muhammad Abu Abbas accepted responsibility, and in 1997, the PLO reached a financial settlement with the Klinghoffer family.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: In January 1988, the US dropped its arrest warrant for Abbas deferring to his Italian conviction and due to insufficiency of evidence at the moment to take him to trial on different charges. The US Justice Department claimed that other countries that had evidence against him were refusing to cooperate with their prosecution. At a 1988 press conference in Algeria, Abbas offered a different explanation for the death of Klinghoffer "Maybe he was trying to swim for it." No overt attempt to capture Abbas or enforce his sentence was made by Italy, who desired continued relations with the PLO.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Abbas' PLF continued to receive Arafat's endorsement, and in 1990, President George H. W. Bush rescinded his earlier recognition of the PLO for Arafat's refusal to condemn a PLF attack (in 1990, he masterminded a plot to attack Israeli beaches with 17 terrorists using hang gliders but they were intercepted by the Israelis who killed four of them). In 1990, Abbas went into hiding and the US issued a warrant for his arrest with an offer of a $250,000 reward for his capture. This was withdrawn in 1992 with the presidency of Bill Clinton and his administration’s work towards the Oslo Accords. In 1990, Libya withdrew their support of the PLF, leaving Iraq as the only nation state supporting Abbas.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: In 1994, Abbas was given sanctuary in Iraq by Saddam Hussein. Abbas (born in a Syrian refugee camp) made his new home in Gaza (after being given amnesty in 1996 in line with the 1993 signing of the Oslo Peace Accords). He became a representative of the Palestine National Council. The administration of President Bill Clinton, aware of Abbas' resurfacing, neither asked for his extradition nor requested he be turned over to Italy who had found him guilty in absentia. The U.S. Senate passed a resolution 99–0 asking Clinton to request Abbas' extradition to the U.S. The Congressional Research Service held that the statute of limitations had not expired because Abbas was a fugitive from justice. Clinton's critics also pointed out that the U.S. was not a signatory to the Oslo Accords, and that they make no mention of the U.S.'s ability to prosecute anyone.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Throughout the 1990s, Abbas moved back and forth from Baghdad to the West Bank, secretly recruiting more Palestinians to join the PLF, while he told the news media that he was reformed and that the "Achille Lauro" hijacking had been an accident.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: In 2000, during the Palestinian uprising, he left Gaza, returning to Baghdad. While in Iraq, Abbas became the conduit through which Hussein, sworn enemy of Israel, paid $25,000 bounties to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers who killed Israelis.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: In 2001, the Israelis caught two PLF cells that Abbas had recruited and trained after they had murdered an Israeli teenager. Bassam al-Ashker, one of the four "Achille Lauro" hijackers, had risen to be Abbas' top deputy in the PLF and was in charge of training, planning, and logistics for the cell. Cell members were arrested in the areas of Ramall and Jenin. One of them confessed that the PLF had trained them to use automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, and bomb building at the Al-Quds military camp outside Baghdad. By the time the Israelis had captured the cell they had kidnapped and murdered Israeli teenager Yuri Gushchin, set off a bomb at an Israeli checkpoint (injuring five), planted failed bombs, and shot at Israeli vehicles. The cell was prevented from a planned mass killing at Ben Gurion Airport and attacking targets within Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The group was also charged with smuggling weapons in the diplomatically protected car of Palestinian Authority official Abdel-Razak al-Yehiyeh.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Speaking to the "New York Times" in 2002 Abbas denounced Osama bin Laden and sought to distance the Palestinian cause from Al Qaeda's declared holy war against the United States. He stated that the PLF had a limited, historic goal of liberating Palestine, while Al Qaeda's goal was borderless and limitless. He held that the death of Klinghoffer was unfortunate collateral damage, similar to innocent Japanese civilians killed by the American use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Also in 2002, the Israelis discovered that the PLF had recruited a new cell that had been sent to Baghdad to be trained by the Iraqi intelligence agency to use rocket-propelled grenades and Russian shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. While training, the cell was visited by Abbas and Ashker (who delivered instructions on surveying targets and executing plans). The Israelis were able to disrupt the new cell’s plans before they could be executed. In September 2002, the Israelis found information in material they had seized when they occupied a section of Arafat's compound in Ramallah earlier that year. This information showed links between Abbas and Arafat and that the Palestinian Authority (along with Iraq) financed some of the PLF's expenses.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: On Monday April 14, 2003, during the Iraq War, Abbas was captured in the outskirts of Baghdad by U.S. Special forces acting on information from U.S. Intelligence. The Palestine Liberation Front had moved from Tunisia to Iraq after the Achille Lauro hijacking. American Special forces captured several others at Abbas' compound and seized documents and passports.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Palestinian Cabinet member Saeb Erakat protested that the seizure of Abbas was in violation of the Oslo peace accords (signed by the US, Israel, the EU, Russia, Jordan, Egypt, Norway, and the Palestinian Authority) which agreed that no member of the PLO would be arrested or brought to trial for actions previous to September 13, 1993.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: In October 2002, President George W. Bush had accused Iraq of having "provided safe haven" for Abbas, presenting this as another rationale for military action.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: "And, of course, sophisticated delivery systems aren't required for a chemical or biological attack; all that might be required are a small container and one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it. And that is the source of our urgent concern about Saddam Hussein's links to international terrorist groups. Over the years, Iraq has provided safe haven to terrorists such as Abu Nidal, whose terror organization carried out more than 90 terrorist attacks in 20 countries that killed or injured nearly 900 people, including 12 Americans. Iraq has also provided safe haven to Abu Abbas, who was responsible for seizing the Achille Lauro and killing an American passenger. And we know that Iraq is continuing to finance terror and gives assistance to groups that use terrorism to undermine Middle East peace."


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Members of Bush's administration cited Abbas' capture as "yet another victory in the global war on terrorism" and (seemingly paraphrasing a Reagan quote from the time of the EgyptAir interception) said that it sends terrorists the message "You can run, but you cannot hide. We will hold you to account." Under American interrogation in Iraq, Abbas continued to deny direct involvement in the murder of Klinghoffer. He admitted planning the ship's seizure, but stated that he was not aboard the "Achille Lauro" at the time but in Jordan.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: On Monday March 8, 2004, Abbas, age 55, died of natural causes while an American prisoner in an Iraqi jail outside Baghdad. He had been held there while discussions about his legal status and whether he could be tried in the US or elsewhere had continued. Most US anti-terrorism laws with extraterritorial provisions had been enacted after the hijacking. The Italian government, despite having sentenced Abbas to five consecutive life sentences in absentia, had not sought his extradition.


title: Achille Lauro hijacking

text: Following the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, the Klinghoffer family founded the Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer Memorial Foundation, in cooperation with the Anti-Defamation League.


title: Carol M. Bundy

text: Carol Mary Bundy (August 26, 1942 – December 9, 2003) was an American serial killer. Bundy and Doug Clark became collectively known as the Sunset Strip Killers after being convicted of a series of murders in Los Angeles during the late spring and early summer of 1980. The victims were young sex workers or runaways.


title: Carol M. Bundy

text: Bundy had a troubled childhood, as both of her parents were abusive alcoholics. Bundy's mother died when she was young and her father sexually abused her starting at the age of 11. After Bundy's father remarried, he put her in various foster homes. When Bundy was 17 years old, she married a 56-year-old man.


title: Carol M. Bundy

text: By the time Bundy met Doug Clark at the age of 37, she had just escaped a third marriage to an abusive man, by whom she had two young sons. She had begun an affair with her apartment block manager, part-time country singer Jack Murray, and had attempted to bribe Murray's wife into leaving him. After Murray's wife compelled him to evict Bundy from the block, Bundy continued to show up regularly to venues where he was singing. It was at one of these venues, a bar called Little Nashville, where she first met Clark in 1980. Clark soon moved in with Bundy and they found out that they shared dark sexual fantasies.


title: Carol M. Bundy

text: Clark began bringing prostitutes back to the couple's apartment to have threesomes. Then, when Clark took an interest in an 11-year-old neighbor, Bundy helped lure the girl into posing for pornographic photographs. Clark quickly escalated from pedophilia, talking about how much he would like to kill a girl during sex. He persuaded Bundy to purchase two automatic pistols for him to use, reportedly seeking to fulfill his fantasy of killing a woman during sex and feeling her vaginal contractions during the death spasms.


title: Carol M. Bundy

text: One night, during June 1980, Clark came home and told Bundy about two teenagers, Gina Narano and Cynthia Chandler, whom he had murdered after picking them up on the Sunset Strip. He had ordered them to perform fellatio on him and then shot them both in the head before taking them to a garage and raping their dead bodies. He had then dumped the bodies near the Ventura Freeway, where they were found the next day. An uneasy Bundy phoned the police, admitting to having some knowledge of the murders, but refused to provide any clues as to Clark's identity. Clark told Bundy that, if either of them were apprehended, he would take the blame in the hope that she would be allowed to go free.


title: Carol M. Bundy

text: Twelve days after the initial murders, Clark killed two women who were working as prostitutes, Karen Jones and Exxie Wilson. As before, Clark lured them into the car, shot them, and dumped their bodies in plain sight, but not before removing Wilson's head. Clark took the head back home and stored it in the refrigerator. Bundy, upon seeing it, put make-up on it before Clark used it again for another "bout of necrophilia." Two days later, the couple put the freshly cleaned head in a box and dumped it in an alleyway. Three days later, another victim was found in the woods in the San Fernando Valley. The victim, a runaway named Marnette Comer, appeared to have been killed three weeks earlier, making her Clark's first known victim.


title: Carol M. Bundy

text: Meanwhile, Bundy continued to attend Murray's performances and, afterwards, would make conversation with him. After a few drinks, the conversation turned to things she and Clark were doing. Murray was alarmed and implied that he might tell the police. To prevent this from happening, in August 1980, Bundy lured Murray into his van after a show to have sex. Once they were inside, she shot and decapitated him. Bundy left various clues behind, including shell casings in the van. Two days later, Bundy bowed to psychological pressure and confessed to her co-workers that she had killed Murray. They called the police and she gave a full confession to her and Clark's crimes.


title: Carol M. Bundy

text: The murder weapons were found hidden at Clark's workplace after his arrest. Bundy was charged with two murders: Jack Murray and an unidentified victim, whose murder Bundy had confessed to witnessing after she handed Clark the gun. Clark was charged with six murders. At his trial, Clark acted as his own defense counsel and set out to prove that Bundy and Jack Murray had committed the murders. Bundy did not testify for the prosecution at Clark's trial, but did testify for the defense, having been granted immunity from prosecution for additional crimes. Clark was convicted of all six murders and sentenced to death in 1983. , Clark was still on California's death row.


title: Carol M. Bundy

text: Bundy was sentenced to prison for a term of 25 years for Murray's murder and a term of 27 years for the second murder. Bundy died in prison from heart failure on December 9, 2003, at the age of 61.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: James Bond 007: Nightfire is a 2002 first-person shooter video game published by Electronic Arts for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and Microsoft Windows, with additional versions released for the Game Boy Advance in 2003, and the Mac OS X in 2004. The computer versions feature modifications to the storyline, different missions and the removal of driving sections used in home console versions.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: The game's story involves fictional British secret agent James Bond, as he undertakes a mission to investigate the operations of a noted industrialist, uncovering a plot by them to conquer the world via a major defence satellite created by the United States. The game uses the likeness of James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, although the character is voiced by Maxwell Caulfield.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: The home console versions received positive reviews from critics, while other versions received mixed reactions.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: "Nightfire" features two game modes for use - a single-player mode featuring a variety of missions and focused on the game's story, and a multiplayer mode where players can engage with other players, as well as AI bots. The game operates from a first-person perspective and features a variety of weapons all based on real-life models, but, much like previous games involving James Bond, have alternate names. The game features a similar arrangement to monitoring health as with "GoldenEye 007", in that players have a health meter that decrease when they take damage, with the player's character killed when it is fully depleted, though armor can be acquired to absorb the damage during gameplay.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: In the single-player mode, players must complete a set of objectives, which requires navigating around each mission's level dealing with hostiles and making use of gadgets. Completing a level is done by completing all objectives and reaching the level's exit goal. Each level has a number of unique tokens, referred to as ""007" tokens", which unlock special rewards in the game, and are acquired by completing certain actions in a level. Players may also carry out "Bond Moments", utilizing gadgets and parts of the level environment to dispatch enemies, open secret paths, and destroy obstacles, the act of which will contribute to the player's performance rating for that level. At times, the player also engages in driving sections during certain levels - these stages function in a similar style to those used in the "Spy Hunter" series of video games, in which the player uses offensive weapons and gadgets to deal with enemies, while following a linear A-to-B route from the start to the finish of the level. Completing a level allows the player to receive a score that denotes how well they performed.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: Multiplayer mode focuses on players battling with each other and AI bots across a variety of stages - while some stages are based on levels from the game, others are based on settings and fictional locations based from the "James Bond" film franchise, including Fort Knox, from "Goldfinger" (1964), and Atlantis from "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977). Players can choose which characters to play as, including a selection taken from the film franchise such as Jaws, Baron Samedi, Max Zorin, Auric Goldfinger, and Renard. Players can customise settings before a match, such as length of play, conditions for winning and so forth, as well as the setting for any AI bots used in the match - alongside players, bots can be used (four for PlayStation 2, and six for GameCube and Xbox), which can be customised with different reaction times, speed and health.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: Computer versions of the game function similar to the console versions, though with some differences:


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: British MI6 agent James Bond works alongside French Intelligence operative Dominique Paradis to prevent the use of a stolen nuclear weapon within the city of Paris by a terrorist group during New Year's Eve. The pair manage to thwart the terrorists and prevent the device from being detonated before Bond and Dominique spend the evening celebrating the new year. Shortly after returning, Bond's boss M reveals news that a missile guidance chip, intended for the Space Defense Platform (SDP) - a new militarised space station built by the United States - has been stolen. MI6 suspects the theft is linked to Phoenix International, a company owned by industrialist Raphael Drake - and that the head of Drake's Asian division, Alexander Mayhew, is due to bring the chip to him during a party at his castle in Austria.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: M sends Bond to recover the chip during the exchange and investigate Drake's motive for its acquisition. Infiltrating the party, Bond meets with CIA agent Zoe Nightshade, his contact sent to assist in the chip's recovery, but is surprised to find Dominique within the castle, learning that she is working undercover as Drake's mistress. After reaching the meeting room where Drake and Mayhew intend to meet, Bond overhears the men discussing a project codenamed "Nightfire" before discovering that Zoe had been captured. Bond recovers the chip before going after and rescuing Zoe, whereupon the pair make their way down the mountain for a rendezvous with Q, dealing with Drake's men and his Head of Security, Armitage Rook. Following the incident, Mayhew contacts MI6 to offer information on Drake's operations in exchange for protection.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: Bond is sent to Japan to extract Mayhew at his Japanese estate, but shortly after being introduced to his bodyguard Kiko, Drake's men attack the building. While Mayhew is killed, Bond finds important information that leads him to Phoenix's Tokyo offices and a nuclear power plant being decommissioned. After gathering evidence, Kiko turns on Bond and brings him to Drake, who exposes Dominique as a spy for helping Bond escape his security teams and has her executed. Before he is killed himself, Bond breaks free and escapes to the ground floor, where he is rescued by Australian Intelligence agent Alura McCall. Upon leaving Tokyo, Bond finds himself sent to an island in the South Pacific alongside Alura, learning that Drake owns it and is using a jamming signal to conceal what he has stationed there.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: Sent ahead of a joint taskforce of UN, EU and NATO forces, Bond and Alura deal with the island's defences, while eliminating Rook and Kiko. Discovering that Drake built a launch facility on the island, Bond determines that he plans to capture the SDP and use its weapons to dominate the world. While Alura remains behind, Bond pursues after Drake in one of his space shuttles. Reaching the station, he proceeds to sabotage it so that it destroys itself, before killing Drake as it begins to break apart. Bond swiftly escapes in an escape pod moments before the station is destroyed and returns to the planet. Upon his return, Bond reunites with Alura and spends a romantic evening to celebrate another successful mission.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: The game had been in development as early as September 2000, and was announced as "James Bond 007" in May 2001. By February 2002, the game's working title was "James Bond in... Phoenix Rising". The game's final title was unveiled three months later. In July 2002, James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan had his head scanned with a laser digitizer to create the player character, who is voiced by Maxwell Caulfield.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: Eurocom developed the home console versions, while Gearbox Software handled the Windows version. Gearbox utilized the GoldSrc game engine by Id Software and Valve Corporation, though it was heavily modified for "Nightfire". Driving levels were developed by Savage Entertainment and a team at Electronic Arts. These levels were excluded from the Windows version so Gearbox could focus on the first-person and multiplayer modes. "Nightfire" marked the first time a James Bond video game featured an original song: "Nearly Civilized" performed by Esthero. Its original score was composed by Steve Duckworth, Ed Lima and Jeff Tymoschuk.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: In North America, "Nightfire" was released for home consoles around 18 November 2002, coinciding with the theatrical release of the Bond film "Die Another Day". The Windows version was released a week later. In January 2003, Electronic Arts announced that a Game Boy Advance version of the game was in development by JV Games. A Macintosh version, by Aspyr Media, was released in June 2004.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: Home console versions of "James Bond 007: Nightfire" received "generally favorable" reviews, while the Game Boy Advance and PC versions received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. It was a runner-up for "GameSpot"s annual "Best Shooter on GameCube" award, which went to "TimeSplitters 2". In 2008, "PC Games Hardware" included Alura McCall, Makiko Hayashi, Dominique Paradis and Zoe Nightshade among the 112 most important female characters in games.


title: James Bond 007: Nightfire

text: By September 2003, the game had sold five million copies across all platforms, with the Xbox version achieving Platinum Hits status for selling at least two million copies. In the United States, the computer version sold 230,000 copies and earned $5.3 million by August 2006, after its release in November 2002. It was the country's 93rd best-selling computer game during this period. The PlayStation 2 version received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: The history of Bulgaria during World War II encompasses an initial period of neutrality until 1 March 1941, a period of alliance with the Axis Powers until 8 September 1944, and a period of alignment with the Allies in the final year of the war. Bulgarian military forces occupied with German consent parts of the kingdoms of Greece and Yugoslavia which Bulgarian irredentism claimed on the basis of the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano. Bulgaria resisted Axis pressure to join the war against the Soviet Union, which began on 22 June 1941, but did declare war on Britain and the United States on 13 December 1941. The Red Army entered Bulgaria on 8 September 1944; Bulgaria declared war on Germany the next day.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: As an ally of Nazi Germany, Bulgaria participated in the Holocaust, contributing to the deaths of 11,343 Jews, and though 48,000 Jews survived the war, they were subjected to forcible internal deportation, dispossession, and discrimination. However, during the war, German-allied Bulgaria did not deport Jews from the core provinces of Bulgaria. Bulgaria's wartime government was pro-German under Georgi Kyoseivanov, Bogdan Filov, Dobri Bozhilov, and Ivan Bagryanov. It joined the Allies under Konstantin Muraviev in early September 1944, then underwent a coup d'état a week later, and under Kimon Georgiev was pro-Soviet thereafter.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: The government of the Kingdom of Bulgaria under Prime Minister Georgi Kyoseivanov declared a position of neutrality upon the outbreak of World War II. Bulgaria was determined to observe it until the end of the war; but it hoped for bloodless territorial gains in order to recover the territories lost in the Second Balkan War and World War I, as well as gain other lands with a significant Bulgarian population in the neighbouring countries. Bulgaria had been the only defeated power of 1918 not to have received some territorial award by 1939. However, it was clear that the central geopolitical position of Bulgaria in the Balkans would inevitably lead to strong external pressure by both World War II factions. Turkey had a non-aggression pact with Bulgaria. This recovery of territory reinforced Bulgarian hopes for resolving other territorial problems without direct involvement in the War.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: Bulgaria, as a potential beneficiary from the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939, had competed with other such nations to curry favour with Nazi Germany by gestures of antisemitic legislation. Bulgaria was economically dependent on Germany, with 65% Bulgaria's trade in 1939 accounted for by Germany, and militarily bound by an arms deal. Bulgarian extreme nationalists lobbied for a return to the enlarged borders of the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano. The Bulgarian officer class were mainly pro-German while the population at large was predominantly Russophile. On 7 September 1940, after the Second Vienna Award in August, Southern Dobruja, lost to Romania under the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, was returned to Bulgarian control by the Treaty of Craiova, formulated under German pressure. A citizenship law followed on 21 November 1940, which transferred Bulgarian citizenship to the inhabitants of the annexed territory, including to around 500 Jews, alongside the territory's Roma, Greeks, Turks, and Romanians. Bulgaria had earlier briefly re-acquired Southern Dobruja between 1916 and 1918.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: In October 1940 the "Law for the Protection of the Nation" was introduced to parliament. The bill made legislative progress through the winter of late 1940, with parliament reviewing it on the 15, 19, and 20 November. The week before the debates over the bill continued to second reading on 20 December 1940, a ship carrying 326 Bulgarian Jewish and other Jewish refugees heading to British-administered Palestine, the "Salvador", was wrecked in the Sea of Marmara on 14 December with 230 lives lost. Of the 160 seats in the National Assembly, a majority of between 115 and 121 members voted with the government. The parliament ratified the bill on Christmas Eve, 1940. It received royal assent from Tsar Boris III on 15 January the following year, being published in the "State Gazette" on 23 January 1941. The law forbade the granting of Bulgarian citizenship to Jews as defined by the "Law." The "Law"'s second chapter ordered measures for the definition, identification, segregation, and economic and social marginalization of Jews. The law had been proposed to parliament by Petar Gabrovski, Interior Minister and former "Ratnik" leader in October 1940. His "protégé," government lawyer and fellow "Ratnik", Alexander Belev, had been sent to study the 1933 Nuremberg Laws in Germany and was closely involved in its drafting. Modelled on this precedent, the law targeted Jews, together with Freemasonry and other intentional organizations deemed "threatening" to Bulgarian national security.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: The "Law" introduced restrictions on foreign Jews as well. In late 1938 and early 1939 Bulgarian police officials and the Interior Ministry were already increasingly opposed to the admittance of Jewish refugees from persecution in Central Europe. In response to a query by British diplomats in Sofia, the Foreign Ministry confirmed the policy that from April 1939, Jews from Germany, Romania, Poland, Italy, and what remained of Czechoslovakia (and later Hungary) would be required to obtain consent from the ministry to secure entry, transit, or passage visas. Nevertheless, at least 430 visas (and probably around 1,000) were issued by Bulgarian diplomats to foreign Jews, of which there were as many as 4,000 in Bulgaria in 1941. On 1 April 1941 the Police Directorate allowed the departure of 302 Jewish refugees, mostly underage, from Central Europe for the express purpose of Bulgaria "freeing itself from the foreign element". After April 1941, the "Law"'s jurisdiction was extended beyond Bulgaria's pre-war borders to territories in Greece and Yugoslavia occupied by the Bulgarian army and claimed and administered by Bulgaria.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: Bulgaria had been mooted as a possible member of the Soviet sphere in the Molotov-Ribbentrop discussions in November 1939; the significance of Bulgaria's position increased after the British Empire intervened in the Balkans campaign and Hitler's plans to invade the Soviet Union progressed. Pressure built on Boris to join the Axis, but he vacillated, and the government committed to joining – but at an unspecified date. In the planning of Operation Marita, the Germans sought to cross Bulgaria to invade Greece. Bogdan Filov travelled to Vienna to sign the Tripartite Pact at the beginning of March.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: After the failure of the Italian invasion of Greece, Nazi Germany demanded that Bulgaria join the Tripartite Pact and permit German forces to pass through Bulgaria to attack Greece in order to help Italy. The Bulgarian prime minister signed the pact on 1 March 1941; German forces crossed the Danube into Bulgaria the same day. The threat of a possible German invasion, as well as the promise of Greek and Yugoslavian territories, led the tsar and his government to sign the Tripartite Pact on 1 March 1941. Tsar Boris III and prime minister Bogdan Filov were also both known to be fervent admirers of Adolf Hitler.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: With the Soviet Union in a non-aggression pact with Germany, there was little popular opposition to the decision, and it was recognized with applause in the Parliament a couple of days later.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: On 6 April 1941, despite having joined the Axis Powers, the Bulgarian military did not participate in the invasion of Yugoslavia or the invasion of Greece, but were ready to occupy their pre-arranged territorial gains immediately after the capitulation of each country. The Yugoslav government surrendered on 17 April; on 19 April, the Bulgarian Land Forces entered Yugoslavia. The Greek government surrendered on 30 April; the Bulgarian occupation began the same day. Bulgaria's contribution to Operation Marita and the Axis conquest of Greece was relatively minor; the Bulgarians and a "Wehrmacht" division guarded the left flank of the invasion. After Greece and Yugoslavia's capitulation, three Bulgarian divisions from the Second and Fifth Armies deployed to Thrace and Macedonia to relieve pressure on the Germans. In words chosen by Tsar Boris, Bulgaria announced the occupation of Macedonia and Thrace "to preserve order and stability in the territories taken over by Germany". Bulgarians, elated by the "de facto" unification of lost national irredenta, named Boris "King Unifier".


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: Bulgaria occupied most of Yugoslav Macedonia, Pomoravlje, Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace, which had already been captured by the forces of the Germans and their allies and which had been lost to Bulgaria in 1918. The Bulgarians occupied territory between the Struma River and a line of demarcation running through Alexandroupoli and Svilengrad west of the Maritsa river. Included in the area occupied were the cities of Alexandroupoli (), Komotini (), Serres (), Xanthi (), Drama () and Kavala () and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace in Greece, as well as almost all of what is today the Republic of North Macedonia and much of South-Eastern Serbia, then in Yugoslavia.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: In the region of Macedonia, the majority initially welcomed union with Bulgaria as relief from Yugoslavian Serbianization, where pro-Bulgarian sentiments there still prevailed. After 1918, more than 1,700 Bulgarian churches and monasteries had been converted to Serbian or Greek Orthodoxy, and some 1,450 Bulgarian schools closed. Bulgarian had been forbidden in public life. Bulgarization was seen as necessary to strengthen Bulgaria's claim on the territory after a projected Axis victory, since Germany had not definitively indicated Bulgaria would keep it and no international treaty recognized Bulgaria's claims; "the Bulgarian nature of the territories had to be incontrovertible by the end of the war". Consequently, a university - Macedonia's first - bearing Boris III's name was instituted in Skopje, more than 800 new schools were built between 1941 and 1944, Macedonian schools were integrated into Bulgaria's education system, and Macedonian teachers were retrained in Bulgarian.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: The Bulgarian Orthodox Church sought the integration of Bulgarian-ruled Macedonia with the Exarchate of Bulgaria. It was hoped the "national reunification" might lead to a restored Bulgarian Patriarchate representative of all Bulgarian communities, but Tsar Boris, wary of any new power-base in his kingdom, opposed the plan. At Easter in Skopje Cathedral the service was officiated by a Bulgarian cleric. Priests were encouraged out of retirement to preach in Macedonian parishes. The government in Sofia preferred to appoint Bulgarian bishops loyal to the Exarchate to sees in Macedonia than local candidates, a policy which disappointed Macedonians and Bulgarians alike. By 1944, Sofia's government was as unpopular in Macedonia as Belgrade's had been before the occupation, each government alienating Macedonians with over-centralization.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: In Thrace, more opposition was encountered. Before June 1941 and the German–Turkish Treaty of Friendship, the Germans did not allow Bulgarian civilian administration for fear of antagonizing Turkey with Bulgarian expansion; separate Greek, German, and Bulgarian occupation zones prevailed until August 1941. Thereafter, pressure was applied to Turkish inhabitants of the region to emigrate. The demographics of western Thrace had been changed by the 1921 population exchange between Greece and Turkey, with the arrival of many Greeks from East Thrace in the Turkish Republic and the departure of many Turks. Most villages were assigned to the Nevrokop diocese of the Bulgarian Church as part of a wider Bulgarization policy in education and religion. The Bulgarian school system was introduced in September 1941 and by 1942's end there were 200 new primary schools and 34 gymnasia established for ethnic Bulgarians alone; Turks and Greeks had separate schools, and despite protests of Muslim teachers, children of Pomaks were sent to Bulgarian schools organized on Orthodox Christian lines. Also in September 1941, the suppression of the Drama uprising against Bulgarian rule on the night of the 28-'9 September resulted in the deaths of around 1,600 people.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: The Bulgarian government hoped in Thrace to remove ethnic Greeks who had arrived in territory ceded to Greece after 1918, at which time Bulgarians had been the demographic plurality. Bulgarization was encouraged by a new law on internal migration and consolidation in June 1941, by a new land directorate to facilitate Bulgarian settlers set up in February 1942 with plots of land distributed to officials, and by incentives for ethnic Bulgarians from southern Macedonia to move to replace departing Greeks in Thrace. There was also a bias towards Bulgarians in the cooperative bank established to assist farmers there. By March 1942, resettlement permits issued to Bulgarians in Thrace numbered 18,925. After 1942, Allied victories and Greek and Turkish threats of reprisals caused a decrease in the rates of Bulgarians emigrating to Thrace. Because food was brought in from metropolitan Bulgaria, Bulgarian-occupied western Thrace was spared the famine that affected German and Italian occupation zones in Greece, even though Thrace was less developed than either Bulgaria or the rest of Greece.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: Although Bulgarian citizenship had been granted "jus soli" to residents of newly annexed South Dobruja, the "Law for the Protection of the Nation" forbade to granting of citizenship to Jews in the subsequently occupied territories, and no action was taken to determine the status of any of the inhabitants at all until 1942. Jews were merely issued with identity cards in a different colour to non-Jews'. A decree-law issued on 10 June 1942 ("Nerada za podantstvo v osvobodenite prez 1941 godina zemi") confirmed that the "liberated" territories' Jewish residents were ineligible for Bulgarian citizenship. This effectively made them stateless.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: In Nedic's Serbia to secure the railroads, highways and other infrastructure, the Germans began to make use of Bulgarian occupation troops in large areas of the occupied territory, although these troops were under German command and control. This occurred in three phases, with the Bulgarian 1st Occupation Corps consisting of three divisions moving into the occupied territory on 31 December 1941. This corps was initially responsible for about 40% of the territory (excluding the Banat), bounded by the Ibar river in the west between Kosovska Mitrovica and Kraljevo, the West Morava river between Kraljevo and Čačak, and then a line running roughly east from Čačak through Kragujevac to the border with Bulgaria. They were therefore responsible for large sections of the Belgrade–Niš–Sofia and Niš–Skopje railway lines, as well as the main Belgrade–Niš–Skopje highway.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: In January 1943, the Bulgarian area was expanded westwards to include all areas west of the Ibar river and south of a line running roughly west from Čačak to the border with occupied Montenegro and the NDH. This released the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen", which had been garrisoning this area over the winter, to deploy into the NDH and take part in Case White against the Partisans. Many members of the Volksdeutsche from Serbia and the Banat were serving in the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen". This division was responsible for war crimes committed against the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: In July 1943, the Bulgarian occupation zone expanded northwards, with a fourth division, the 25th Division taking over from the 297th Infantry Division in the rest of the territory (excluding the Banat) that did not share a border with the NDH. From this point, German forces only directly occupied the immediate area of Belgrade, the northwest region of the territory that shared a border with the NDH, and the Banat.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: Bulgaria did not join the German invasion of the Soviet Union that began on 22 June 1941 nor did it declare war on the Soviet Union. Bulgarian propaganda refrained from criticism of Stalin. The personal secretary to Tsar Boris noted that the country's strategy was to "conciliate Germany by making many comparatively unimportant concessions". Tsar Boris's position was that the Bulgarian army was not equipped properly or modernised sufficiently to face the Red Army, with conscript soldiers who would not fight effectively far from home against Bulgaria's former Russian allies. Moreover, Bulgaria's military was positioned to thwart any potential threat to the Axis from Turkey or an Allied landing in Greece. Boris resisted German pressure to allow Bulgarian soldiers or volunteers join the fight against the Soviets. Involvement by the navy was limited to escorting Axis convoys in the Black Sea. However, despite the lack of official declarations of war by both sides, the Bulgarian Navy was involved in a number of skirmishes with the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, which attacked Bulgarian shipping. Besides this, Bulgarian armed forces garrisoned in the Balkans battled various anti-Axis resistance groups and partisan movements. Additionally, in 1941 and 1942 the Bulgarian government sent multiple delegations of high-ranking officers that traveled to the occupied USSR; an instrumental role in this action was played by the Chief of the General Staff of the Bulgarian Army, Lieutenant-General Konstantin Ludvig Lukash, who had kept a diary during the most important trip of November-December 1941. Although essentially symbolic gestures, these trips by senior officers provided a channel for intelligence but most importantly demonstrated Bulgaria's "investment" in Hitler and the Axis.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: On 5 March 1941, after the start of Operation MARITA, Britain severed diplomatic relations with Bulgaria but neither side declared war. To show support for the Axis, the Bulgarian government declared a token war on the United Kingdom and the United States on 13 December 1941, an act which resulted in the bombing of Sofia and other Bulgarian cities by Allied aircraft from 1941. The Bulgarian military was able to destroy some Allied aircraft passing through Bulgarian airspace to attack Romania's oilfields. The first were on the return flight of Operation Tidal Wave air raid on Ploiești on 1 August 1943, part of the oil campaign; bombers flying back to airbases in North Africa over Bulgaria were intercepted by fighters of the Bulgarian Air Force and aircrew that reached the ground alive were interned as prisoners of war under the 1929 Geneva Convention. Most POWs were from the United States Army Air Forces and the Royal Air Force, with American, British, Canadian, Australian, Dutch, Greek, and Yugoslav airmen were all interned at a prisoner-of-war camp opened on 25 November 1943 under the control of the Bulgarian Army's garrison at Shumen and commended by an officer of lieutenant rank. Downed aircrew were usually captured and imprisoned locally, interrogated in the prison in Sofia, and then moved to the POW camp at Shumen; one American airman was liberated from a local jail by the Communist partisans, with whom he thereafter evaded capture. Allied POWs were ultimately interned at Shumen for ten months. The few Soviet POWs were interned at a camp at Sveti Kiri, together with over a hundred Soviet citizens resident in Bulgaria, under the authority of the State Security section of the Police Directorate (DPODS).


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: When Germany invaded the USSR in June 1941 (Operation BARBAROSSA), the underground Bulgarian Communist Party launched a guerrilla movement, which was repressed severely by the government. After BARBAROSSA failed to defeat the USSR, and the US joined the Allies, it seemed that the Axis might lose the war. In August 1942, the Communist Party, the Zveno movement, and some other groups formed the Fatherland Front to resist the pro-German government. Partisan detachments were particularly active in the mountain areas of western and southern Bulgaria.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: Two weeks after a visit to Germany in August 1943, Bulgarian Tsar Boris III died suddenly on 28 August aged 49. There was speculation that he was poisoned - a recent meeting with Hitler had not been cordial - but no culprit was found. A motive for an assassination is difficult to establish: it would have been a great risk for Germans, Soviets, and British; it was uncertain who might replace Boris at the centre of the Bulgarian state. A post-mortem in the 1990s established that an infarction in the left side of the heart was the direct cause of death. According to the diary of the German attache in Sofia at the time, Colonel von Schoenebeck, the two German physicians who attended to the tsar – Sajitz and Hans Eppinger – both believed that Boris died from the same poison Dr. Eppinger had allegedly found two years earlier in the postmortem examination of the Greek prime minister Ioannis Metaxas. His six-year-old son Simeon II succeeded to the throne. Because of Simeon's age, a regency council was set up, headed by Prime Minister Bogdan Filov, who gave up that office on 9 September. The new Prime Minister from 14 September 1943, Dobri Bozhilov, was in most respects as pro-German. Boris had begun to seek Bulgaria's escape from war, and the regency, which lacked his authority abroad and at home, made similar designs. Bozhilov intensified negotiations with the western Allies, fearing the fate of Benito Mussolini's government.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: On 19 November 1943 the first heavy bombing of Bulgarian cities by the Allies took place. After further raids and an even heavier attack on Sofia on 30 March 1944, many inhabitants fled the city. Major Frank Thompson of the Special Operations Executive was parachuted in to rendezvous with the Bulgarian Resistance, but was captured and executed for espionage in June 1944.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: After April 1944, the Soviets increased pressure on Bulgaria to abandon the Axis alliance. Bulgaria had maintained diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union while being a member of the Axis Powers.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: On 1 June 1944 Filov sacked Bozhilov, in the hope of placating internal opposition and the Allies. Filov had reluctantly decided the alliance with Germany should end. Ivan Bagryanov took over as prime minister. Filov tried to play for time, hoping that an Allied landing in the Balkans would allow Bulgaria to join the Allies without the loss of the new territories in Thrace and Macedonia, and avoid the German occupation of Bulgaria that would follow an immediate change in sides. But the invasion of Normandy on 6 June ended any possibility of a major western Allied offensive in the Balkans. Meanwhile, Soviet westward offensives continued apace. Also at this time, German forces were being withdrawn from Greece, and Bulgaria had lost its strategic significance to the western Allies.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: Bagryanov had sympathies for the West, and hoped to disengage Bulgaria from the war before Soviet forces reached the Danube, thus avoiding Soviet occupation. By the middle of August, American diplomatic pressure and a report of the International Committee of the Red Cross which had detailed hardships of the inmates had caused conditions at the POW camp at Shumen to be improved; before this, the Allied POWs were allowed only limited water and suffered from malnutrition. Bagryanov repealed the antisemitic legislation of his predecessors on 17 August. He had success in negotiating the withdrawal of the German forces from Varna on the grounds that their presence invited an Allied attack, and blocked the arrival of any more German troops in Bulgaria.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: But his plans went awry. On 20 August 1944, Soviet forces broke through Axis defenses in Romania, and approached the Balkans and Bulgaria. On 23 August, Romania left the Axis Powers and declared war on Germany, which


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: and allowed Soviet forces to cross its territory to reach Bulgaria. On 27 August, the Bulgarian government announced neutrality; Bagryanov handed over to the Germans 8,000 railway wagons to accelerate their withdrawal. The Fatherland Front, which had demanded full neutrality, decried this assistance. On the same date the Fatherland Front made the decision to incite an armed rebellion against the government.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: On 30 August, Joseph Stalin declared the USSR would no longer recognize Bulgarian neutrality. Soviet pressure to declare war on Germany was intense. Bagryanov assured the Soviets that foreign troops in Bulgaria would be disarmed, ordered German troops to leave the country, and began to disarm German soldiers arriving in Dobruja, but refused to violate Bulgaria's own newly-declared neutrality by declaring war on Germany. But this was not enough. On 2 September, Bagryanov and his government were replaced by a government of Konstantin Muraviev and those opposition parties which were not in the Fatherland Front. Muraviev initially opposed war with Germany, arguing this would be used as pretext for a Soviet occupation of Bulgaria. Support for the government was withheld by the Fatherland Front, which described it as pro-Nazis attempting to hold on to power. On 4 September, the Fatherland Front organized popular strikes. On 5 September, Muraviev decided to break off diplomatic relations with Germany, but delayed announcing the move for two days at the urging of War Minister Lieut. Gen. Ivan Marinov to enable Bulgarian troops to withdraw from occupied Macedonia. When all German troops had left the country on the afternoon of 7 September, Bulgaria declared war on Germany, but earlier on the same day the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria, without consultation with either the USA or Britain, "to liberate Bulgaria". On 8 September Bulgaria was simultaneously at war with four major belligerents of the war: Germany, Britain, the USA, and the USSR. Soviet forces crossed the border on 8 September. They occupied the north-eastern part of Bulgaria along with the key port cities of Varna and Burgas by the next day. By order of the government, the Bulgarian Army offered no resistance .


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: During Bulgaria's alliance with Nazi Germany, the Bulgarian government introduced measures and legislation targeting Jews and other minorities; in September 1939 all Jews regarded as foreign nationals - some 4,000 - were expelled. Most fled eventually to Palestine, arriving there after considerable difficulty. Interior Minister Petar Gabrovski, and Alexander Belev, having studied the Nuremberg Laws, introduced in 1940 the Law for Protection of the Nation, in force from January 1941. By this means, Jews under Bulgaria's control were excluded from most professions, universities, and trades unions, from all government service, and from certain public areas. Moreover, Jews were required to carry special identity cards, were forbidden to bear "non-Jewish" names or marry Bulgarians.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: The Bulgarian irredentist seizure in 1941 of coveted territory from Greece and Yugoslavia and the formation of the new oblasts of Skopje, Bitola, and Belomora increased Bulgaria's Jewish population to around 60,000. These were forbidden to have Bulgarian citizenship under the "Law for the Protection of the Nation". From early in the war, Bulgarian occupation authorities in Greece and Yugoslavia handed over Jewish refugees fleeing from Axis Europe to the "Gestapo". In October 1941 Bulgarian authorities demanded the registration of 213 Serbian Jews detected by the "Gestapo" in Bulgarian-administered Skopje; they were arrested on 24 November and 47 of these were taken to Banjica concentration camp in Belgrade, Serbia and killed on 3 December 1941.


title: Bulgaria during World War II

text: The "Law" "for the Protection of the Nation" was followed by a decree-law ("naredbi") on 26 August 1942, which tightened restrictions on Jews, widened the definition of Jewishness, and increased the burdens of proof required to prove non-Jewish status and exemptions ("privilegii"). Jews were thereafter required to wear yellow stars, excepting only those baptized who practised the Christian eucharist. Bulgarian Jews married to non-Jews by Christian rite before 1 September 1940 and baptized before the 23 January 1941 enforcement of the "Law for the Protection of the Nation", rescinding the exemptions allowed to such cases allowed by the "Law". Exemptions for war orphans, war widows, and the disabled veterans were henceforth applicable only "in the event of competition with other Jews", and all such "privilegii" could be revoked or denied if the individual were convicted of a crime or deemed "anti-government" or "communist". In February 1943 SS-"Hauptsturmführer" Theodor Dannecker and Belev - appointed by Gabrovski in 1942 to head the new "Office of the Commissar of Jewish Affairs" within the interior ministry - signed the Dannecker-Belev Agreement, in which Bulgaria agreed to supply Germany with 20,000 Jewish captives. Bulgaria is the only nation to have signed an agreement with Germany to supply Jews in this way; Bulgaria agreed to meet the cost of their expulsion and the document explicitly noted that Bulgaria, knowing their fate in German hands, would never request the Jews' repatriation.