Anis al-Naqqash ( ar, أنيس النقاش; 1951 – 22 February 2021), also known as Naccache, was a Lebanese political activist and revolutionary. He was also known for being a Lebanese guerrilla fighter.

Biography

Al-Naqqash was born into a Sunni Beiruti family but later converted to

Shia Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the ...

Islam after having pledged allegiance to Ruhollah Khomeini following the success of the

Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dyna ...

in February 1979. In 1968, he joined

Fatah Fatah ( ar, فتح '), formerly the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, is a Palestinian nationalist social democratic political party and the largest faction of the Confederation, confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organizati ...

Movement and had several missions in Lebanon, Palestine and Europe, then he became among the first operatives during the

1978 South Lebanon conflict The 1978 South Lebanon conflict (codenamed Operation Litani by Israel) began after Israel invaded southern Lebanon up to the Litani River in March 1978, in response to the Coastal Road massacre near Tel Aviv by Lebanon-based Palestinian mi ...

. In 1975, he was part of a six-person team led by Venezuelan guerrilla fighter

Carlos the Jackal Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (; born 12 October 1949), also known as Carlos the Jackal ( es, link=no, Carlos el Chacal) or simply Carlos, is a Venezuelan convicted of terrorist crimes, and currently serving a life sentence in France for the 1975 murder ...

, which perpetrated the

OPEC siege On December 21, 1975, six militants attacked the semi-annual meeting of OPEC leaders in Vienna, Austria; the attackers took more than 60 hostages after killing an Austrian policeman, an Iraqi OPEC security officer, and a Libyan economist. Several ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. In 1980, Anis al-Naqqash was accused of being involved in a failed assassination attempt on the last Prime Minister of

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkm ...

under

Pahlavi Pahlavi may refer to: Iranian royalty *Seven Parthian clans, ruling Parthian families during the Sasanian Empire *Pahlavi dynasty, the ruling house of Imperial State of Persia/Iran from 1925 until 1979 ** Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878–1944), Shah of ...

monarchy, Shapour Bakhtiar, in a court in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

and was sentenced to life in prison. The assassination attempt resulted in death of a police officer and a civilian. Al-Naqqash was freed on 27 July 1990, together with four accomplices, after being pardoned by President

François Mitterrand François Marie Adrien Maurice Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was President of France, serving under that position from 1981 to 1995, the longest time in office in the history of France. As First Secretary of the Socialist Party, ...

Death

He died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...

at a hospital in Damascus on 22 February 2021, aged 70, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Syria.

References

1951 births 2021 deaths People from Beirut Converts to Shia Islam from Sunni Islam Lebanese people imprisoned abroad Lebanese prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by France Recipients of French presidential pardons Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Syria {{Lebanon-bio-stub Guerrillas Political activists