Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades are a group of West Bank militias affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's al-Fatah faction and have been one of the driving forces behind the al-Aqsa Intifada, emerging shortly afterwards. It is named after the Al-Aqsa Mosque, probably in memory of Ariel Sharon's controversial visit to the Temple Mount at the beginning of the intifada, or simply because the Mosque is an icon for the Palestinian movement.While the group initially vowed to target only Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in early 2002 it began a spree of terrorist attacks against civilians in Israeli cities. In March 2002, after a deadly al-Aqsa Brigades suicide bombing in Jerusalem, the State Department added the group to the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations. At that time, the group was neither officially recognised nor openly backed by Arafat and Fatah, though brigade members tend also to be members of Fatah, the Palestinian leader's political faction, and Israel charges that neither Fatah nor the Palestinian Authority have made any attempt to prevent their attacks. On December 18, 2003, Fatah decided to ask the leaders of the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades to join the Fatah Council, recognizing it officially as part of the organization.
Furthermore, Israel published documents found in Arafat's compound, claiming that they prove Arafat knowingly sponsored Al-Aqsa terrorist attacks; these documents led in part to US president George W. Bush's decision to call for the replacement of Arafat.
The group's relationship with Arafat is subject to conflicting information from leaders within the group. Maslama Thabet, one of the groupÃÂÃÂs leaders in the West Bank town of Tulkarm, told USA Today in March 2002. We receive our instructions from Fatah. Our commander is Yasir Arafat himself. While another leader Naser Badawi, told the New York Times days later that while we respect our leader, the decision to carry out attacks remains with the Aqsa Brigades leadership. Badawi added that Arafat has never approached the group to ask it to stop its suicide bombings, which Arafat has publicly condemned.
Israel arrested Marwan Barghouti, the leader of the group in April 2002, and in August charged him with numerous accounts of manslaughter, conspiracy to manslaughter and membership in a terrorist organization. In addition to his "shadow job" with the group, Barghouti had also served as the general secretary of Fatah in the West Bank. The executive commander of the group, Taufik Tirawi, is claimed to be hiding in Arafat's compund in Ramallah.
Al-Asqa, like many Palestinian militia groups, is noted for the use of promotional posters in the main cities of Palestine. These are done in a style very similar to modern hip hop album covers (especially as made by the labels No Limit Records and Cash Money Records).
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades have attacked Palestinians as well as Israelis. Their Palestinian targets range from opponents of Arafat's rule to journalists to moderates whose political views differ from their own. Al-Aqsa is involved in many lynchings and street-executions of suspected collaborators and others. In November and December, 2003 they murdered the brother of Ghassan Shaqawa (the mayor of Nablus) and have tried to assassinate him several times. On February 2004 Shaqawa filed his resignation from office in protest of the Palestinian Authority's lack of action against the armed militias rampaging the city. Through the first three months of 2004, a number of attacks on journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been blamed on the Brigades as well, most clearly the attack on the Arab television station Al-Arabiya's West Bank offices by masked men self-identifying as members of the Brigades. Palestinian journalists in Gaza called a general strike on February 9 to protest this rising violence against journalists.
The Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades have carried out serveral joint terror attacks with the Islamist group Hamas. These attacks were committed mainly in the Gaza Strip. See also: PLO and Hamas.
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