It broke away from Fatah, a faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization, following the emergence of a rift between Abu Nidal and Yasser Arafat.

It briefly cooperated with Egypt from 1997 to 1998, but ultimately returned to Iraq in December 1998, where it continued to have the state's backing until Abu Nidal's death in August 2002.

[1] Like other Palestinian militant groups, the ANO carried out worldwide hijackings, assassinations, kidnappings of diplomats, and attacks on synagogues.

In 2002, Abu Nidal died under disputed circumstances in Baghdad, with Palestinian sources claiming that he was assassinated on the orders of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

He also argued that Palestine must be established as an Arab state, stretching from the Jordan River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.

After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, many members of the mainstream Fatah movement argued that a political solution with Israel should be an option.

In response, Arafat officially expelled Abu Nidal from Fatah in March 1974, and the rift between the two groups, and the two men, was complete.

[16] In June the same year, ANO formed the Rejectionist Front, a political coalition that opposed the Ten Point Program adopted by the Palestine Liberation Organization in its 12th Palestinian National Congress session.

[17] Abu Nidal then moved to Ba'athist Iraq where he set up the ANO, which soon began a string of terrorist attacks aimed at Israel and Western countries.

[18] The ANO group's most notorious attacks were on the El Al ticket counters at Rome and Vienna airports in December 1985, when Arab gunmen high on amphetamines opened fire on passengers in simultaneous shootings, killing 18 and wounding 120.

In October 1974, the group also made a failed assassination attempt on the present Palestinian president and PLO chairman, Mahmoud Abbas.