[2] He was known for flaunting his wealth, being surrounded by women and driving sports cars, and having popular appeal among Palestinian young men; his nickname underlined his popularity—the "Red Prince" (Arabic: الأمير الاحمر).

Having lived under cover in various parts of the Middle East and Europe, in 1978, he married Georgina Rizk, a Lebanese celebrity who had been Miss Universe seven years earlier.

The contacts later developed more extensively as the PLO offered its intelligence assistance in regard to larger regional issues.

He was also warned by the CIA that his practice of driving around Beirut in convoys of vehicles carrying bodyguards left him vulnerable to an Israeli assassination.

Mossad operatives were subsequently deployed to Beirut to monitor Salameh, one of whom enrolled at the gym where he regularly exercised and befriended him.

[14] One of the agents believed to be involved was Erika Chambers, who arrived in Beirut in October 1978 posing as an NGO staffer wishing to assist Palestinian orphans.

Two other agents involved in the operation using the aliases Peter Scriver and Roland Kolberg entered Lebanon on British and Canadian passports respectively.

[9][8] On 22 January 1979, Salameh was in a convoy of two Chevrolet station wagons headed from Rizk's flat to his mother's for a birthday party.

[5][16] Chambers was on her balcony painting, with the Volkswagen parked below on Rue Verdun (an upscale commercial and residential street in Beirut).

[9] The detonation left Salameh conscious, but severely wounded and in great pain, having pieces of steel shrapnel embedded in his head and throughout his body.