World Notes ITALY

If you want to get in touch with Master Terrorist Abu Nidal, the number in Damascus is 774236. That jewel of information comes from Mahmud Ibrahim Khaled, sole survivor of the four-man team responsible for the massacre at Italy's Leonardo da Vinci Airport on Dec. 27, 1985. According to senior judicial sources in Rome, where Khaled is being held while awaiting trial, the 20-year-old terrorist feels that he has been betrayed by his comrades and is willing to tell all.

To establish his credibility, Khaled led police to Rome's Villa Glori park, where they found the spot under a tree at which the terrorists hid four Kalashnikov machine guns and 15 hand grenades used in the airport attack. The safety plugs for the grenades were still there. He also directed authorities to Paris' Montparnasse Cemetery, where they found a bomb timing device in a toothpaste tube inside a mausoleum.

To no one's surprise, Khaled charges that the organizer of the Rome and Vienna attacks was Abu Nidal, nom de guerre of a renegade Palestinian named Sabry Khalil Bana, and that Syria was at least indirectly implicated. Khaled's detailed description of Nidal's operations has led to a recommendation that Nidal be indicted as the organizer of the airport tragedy. A final decision on the indictment will be made later this year.