Palestinian leader resigns

Geroge Habash is now in his 70s

Veteran guerrilla leader George Habash has tendered his resignation at a meeting of his Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Dr Habash said he would remain with the PFLP to "develop it and realise the goals of the Palestinian people", according to a senior front official, Abu Ahmad Fuad.

Dr Habash, who opposes the policy of compromise with Israel pursued by the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, set up the PFLP in 1968.

George Habash, right, talks to Arab Israeli politician, Azmi Bishara

One of the three main factions of the PLO, Dr Habash's group was behind a spate of aircraft hijackings in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Before tendering his resignation from the post he has held since setting up the Front, Dr Habash made it clear that he would remain politically active.

"There is a fundamental difference between quitting the post of secretary-general of the PFLP and giving up politics," he said.

He planned to focus on writing his memoirs and setting up a research centre to draw lessons from the 52-year Arab-Israeli conflict.

Successor

A PFLP spokesman said conference delegates would discuss Dr Habash's request and reach a decision in several days.

The PFLP protests against the 1993 peace deal

Deputy leader Abu Ali Mustafa, who was recently allowed by Israel to enter the Palestinian self-ruled areas, was said to be the most likely successor.

Dr Habash, formerly a paediatrician, set up the PFLP six months after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in which Israel seized Arab territory, including east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.

He has lived in Damascus since 1982, when an Israeli invasion forced the Palestinian leadership out of Lebanon, and refuses to set foot in the Palestinian territories.

The PFLP belongs to an eight-member Damascus-based alliance which opposes the 1993 interim peace deal, which gives Palestinians limited self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.