Page "Munich massacre" Paragraph 57

On 21 July 1973, in the so-called Lillehammer affair, a team of Mossad agents mistakenly killed Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan man unrelated to the Munich attack, in Lillehammer, Norway, after an informant mistakenly said Bouchiki was Ali Hassan Salameh, the head of Force 17 and a Black September operative.

Five Mossad agents, including two women, were captured by the Norwegian authorities, while others managed to slip away.

The five were convicted of the killing and imprisoned, but were released and returned to Israel in 1975.

The Mossad later found Ali Hassan Salameh in Beirut and killed him on 22 January 1979 with a remote-controlled car bomb.

The attack killed four passersby and injured 18 others.

According to CIA officer Duane " Dewey " Claridge, chief of operations of the CIA Near East Division from 1975 to 1978, in mid-1976, Salameh offered Americans assistance and protection with Arafat's blessings during the American embassy pull-out from Beirut during the down-spiraling chaos of the Lebanese Civil War.

There was a general feeling that Americans could be trusted.

However, the scene of cooperation came to an end abruptly after the assassination of Salameh.

Americans were generally blamed as Israel's principal benefactors.