openly expressed disagreement with the Iraqi leader in face to face meetings, and vouched to stay neutral during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Assassination Khalaf is said to have helped the CIA in an operation to break up the Abu Nidal organization. Defectors who split off were given refuge in Tunis by the PLO. On 14 January 1991, Khalaf was assassinated in the Tunisian home of Abul Hol (Hayel Abdul Hamid, the security head of Fatah), by a Palestinian guard, Hamza Abu Zaid who was a plant from Abu Nidal's group. Zaid shot Khalef in the head, along with Abul Hol and another PLO operative. Palestinians generally reacted by blaming Abu Nidal for the murder, since he was backed by Iraq, and Zaid later confessed to being in contact with Nidal. While Seale considers Abu Nidal to certainly have been behind the murder, others think the order probably came directly from Saddam Hussein. Views of Zionism According to Elizabeth Thompson, Khalaf regarded Zionism as an ideology exploited by a political elite which manipulated memories of Nazism in order to create a persecution complex among Jews. School naming On 24 September 2016, the Palestinian Authority named a school in Tulkarem after Khalaf. Tulkarem governor Issam Abu Bakr said that the school was named after "martyr Salah Khalaf in order to commemorate the memory of this great national fighter". Controversy An Italian public attorney and retired prosecutor—and former director of investigations into the loss of Itavia Flight 870— Judge Rosario Priore argued in a book that Abu Iyad had ordered two German terrorists linked to Venezuelan Carlos the Jackal to carry out the 1980 Bologna massacre (for which three neo-fascists were convicted, including Valerio Fioravanti). The operation was ordered to avenge the break-up of the so-called "lodo Moro ", a secret agreement with which Aldo Moro would have guaranteed the free transit of Palestinians guerrillas and terrorists to Italy. After the arrest of Abu Anzeh Saleh with some missiles destined to Palestinians in 1979, Abu Iyad decided to retaliate, using Czechoslovak explosive provided by Gaddafi's Libya. The explosives were destined to the reinforced walls of Trani's jail, in an action aimed to evade prison for Saleh. Abu Anzeh Saleh was liberated despite having taken less than two years in 1981. Former President of the Italian Republic Francesco Cossiga supported a similar thesis, but he accused George Habash instead of Abu Iyad.