Abu Nidal began to move his organization out of Syria to Libya in the summer of 1986, arriving there in March 1987. In June that year the Syrian government expelled him, in part because of the Hindawi affair and Pan Am Flight 73 hijacking. He repeatedly took credit during this period for operations in which he had no involvement, including the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing, 1985 Bradford City stadium fire, and 1986 assassination of Zafer al-Masri, the mayor of Nablus (killed by the PFLP, according to Seale). By publishing a congratulatory note in the ANO's magazine, he also implied that he had been behind the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, writes Seale.