Farouk Kaddoumi

Farouk al-Kaddoumi (alternative transliteration, Faruq al-Qaddumi; Arabic: فاروق القدومي‎; born 1931), also known as Abu al-Lutf, is Secretary-general of Fatah's central committee and PLO's political department in Tunisia.

Early life

Originally from Kafr Kaddoum, Palestine, Farouk Kaddoumi was born in the town of Jinsafut near Nablus and later his family moved to Jaffa in present-day Israel. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War they fled to Nablus in the West Bank. For three years in the early 1950s he worked in Saudi Arabia for the Arab-American Petroleum Company (ARAMCO). In 1954 he moved to Egypt and while studying economy and political science at the American University in Cairo, he joined the Baath party.

Career with Fatah

In 1958, he joined Yasser Arafat and others in forming student groups calling for the liberation of Palestine. Finally, they formed Fatah (Palestinian National Liberation Movement) that was officially declared beginning of 1965. During the time, he was working for the ministry of health of Kuwait but in 1966 was expelled from the country for political activities connected with the PLO. By 1969 he became one of key figures in the PLO and after 1973 he headed its political department in Beirut, Lebanon.