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The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades first emerged on the scene shortly after the outbreak of what has come to be known as the al-Aqsa conflict, in late September 2000. In a very real sense, the Martyrs Brigades was a response to the need to suit actions to words.

At the close of the Camp David talks, Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat, who had been offered a Palestinian state alongside of—but not instead of—Israel, declared that the Oslo Peace Process was at a dead end. At the time, the Fatah militias, consisting of the Fatah Tanzim, Force-17, and the various Palestinian security services, were still viewed, both by Israel and by the Palestinians themselves, as moderate forces. Ideologically, they supported what had been, up until then, the Palestinian leader’s stated goal of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

After Arafat returned to armed struggle, these stated goals underwent a change, and the nature of the Fatah-linked groups has altered accordingly. Since the outbreak of hostilities, Arafat has consistently preached “Jihad” against Israel. However, at first it was mostly the Islamist groups, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that carried out the mass-casualty attacks inside Israel. The Tanzim, which lacked the resources for carrying out the kind of “professional” bombings typical of Hamas, confined itself to shooting attacks on Israelis on roads in the disputed territories.

All of this began to change towards the end of 2000, when Arafat ordered his security services to release the majority of the imprisoned Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants—many of them convicted terrorists who had been jailed under the terms of the Oslo agreements with Israel. Hamas was invited to join the Palestinian Authority’s governing body; and while the invitation was not accepted, a new level of cooperation between Fatah and Hamas began to take shape. The first joint attacks against Israeli civilians were not long in coming.
 
 

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claims to be faithful to Fatah’s ideology of confrontation with Israel as a means to a Palestinian state. Its members view the armed struggle as the only way to “liberate Palestine”, and consider terrorist attacks and the murder of Israeli civilians to be legitimate ways of serving their key national goals. The group’s ideology was illustrated in a poster published by the Brigades in the Palestinian newspaper Al Hiya Al Jadida soon after the formation of the Brigades: “The ten lean years of the peace process proved that the Zionist occupation which oppresses the heart of the Palestinian homeland and understands only the language of the gun, of fire, of the revolution and the bullets of the revolutionary fighters,” read the poster. According to the al-Aqsa Brigades, not one grain of Arab and Islamic soil should be conceded, all refugees must be allowed to return to former homes in what is now Israel, and any concession to Israel is tantamount to treason.

Unlike the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad—the groups usually associated with mass-casualty attacks against Israel—the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade was at first thought of as a secular, nationalist group, rather than an Islamic one. Thus it came as something of a surprise when the group began carrying out suicide bombings. On hindsight, however, this appears as a natural step. Islamic motifs had been part of the “al-Aqsa” conflict from the beginning—the very name of the conflict was derived from the notion that Israel had plans to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque. Religious motifs have been used extensively by Arafat in his diatribes against “Israeli occupation of Muslim holy places.” Thus, having made Islam-vs.-Judaism a central tenet of the war, it was natural for Fatah to alter its own character to suit the rhetoric that had launched the conflict and kept it going.

The Fatah movement, which controls the Palestinian government—and more importantly, the media and the schools—has generally enjoyed wider popularity than either of the more insular Islamist groups. The movement had lost ground during the earlier stages of the conflict, when the Palestinian leader’s rhetoric outstripped Fatah’s actions in confronting Israel. The popularity of the Islamic groups was given a boost when it appeared that only Hamas and the PIJ were acting to implement Arafat’s calls for “rivers of blood in the streets of Tel-Aviv.” However, this situation was reversed with the emergence of the al-Aqsa Brigades, which since its formation has almost completely eclipsed the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, both in the number and in the deadliness of its attacks. The current predominance of the Martyrs of al-Aqsa in carrying out terrorist attacks in Israel has done much to restore Fatah’s popularity on the Palestinian “street.”
 
 

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades organizational structure is based on a loose network of cells in the main West Bank cities. These cells include “military units,” responsible for carrying out the attacks, and “security units” which are responsible for planning the attacks and overseeing the organization’s internal security. This includes the kidnapping and killing of suspected collaborators.

Among the documents seized in a raid on Arafat’s headquarters was an invoice from the al-Aqsa Martyrs asking for reimbursement for, among other things, explosives used in bombings in Israeli cities. The document was addressed to Brig. Gen. Fouad Shoubaki, the Palestinian Authority’s chief financial officer for military operations, and contained numerous handwritten notes and calculations, apparently added by Shoubaki’s staff. The invoice was sent by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to Shoubaki’s office, located in the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters in Ramallah. Dated 16 September, it outlines expenses through September 6 and asks Shoubaki’s office for money to build additional bombs, and to finance propaganda posters promoting suicide bombers.

According to the Israeli military establishment, Shoubaki was also responsible for financing the activity of the al-Aqsa Brigades in the Bethlehem region, transferring monthly salaries to the organization’s activists in the area. In addition, he was involved in purchasing a cache of weapons stolen towards the end of the year 2000 from an IDF base in the area. These weapons were later used to carry out attacks against Israeli civilians in the area of Jerusalem.

In August 2001, Shoubaki visited Baghdad in order to coordinate positions with the Iraqi government, and in May 2001 he was present at a meeting in Moscow during which the draft for joint activities between Iran and the PA was agreed upon. Both Iraq and Iran have become increasingly involved in providing financial and military support to Palestinian groups since Arafat first declared the peace process at a dead end and returned to armed conflict. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein announced last week that he is increasing the sum offered the families of suicide bombings from $10,000 to $25,000, in order to encourage more young men to “choose the path of martyrdom.”
 
 

The central guidance for the Brigades was initially provided by Maruan Barghouti, heof the Fatah’s supreme council in the West Bank, who operated under the authority of Arafat. Barghouti is now on trial in Israel for orchestrating terror attacks. At the same time, elements of the Palestinian security apparatus have a significant influence on the Brigades and their activities.

Most of the Brigades’ leaders are salaried members of the PA and its security forces. For example, Nasser Awais, a senior al-Aqsa commander, is a full-time employee of the Palestinian National Security Force. Mahmud Damrah, who was involved in organizing terror attacks perpetrated by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was at the same time a commander in the presidential Force 17 in Ramallah.

Nasser Abu Hamid, a senior member and founder of the al-Aqsa Brigades, who was arrested in the course of Operation Defensive Shield, described how the Brigades were founded and how they chose Marwan Bargouti as their leader. According to Hamid, senior PA security service officials initially entreated him and his militants to join their services. Tawfik Tirawi himself, the head of General Intelligence on the West Bank, proposed that Nasser integrate all Brigade members into General Intelligence, and offered to pay their salaries. However, Nasser ultimately decided to join Marwan Barghouti, given their prior acquaintance and Nasser’s feeling that Barghouti would be better able to facilitate the group’s activities. Nasser described the considerable military and financial assistance that they received from the outset from Barghouti, via the latter’s nephew Ahmed Barghouti.

Nasser also provided details on the participation of members of the PA security services in attacks in Israel. Several bombs were regularly kept in a jeep that had been permanently parked at the Force 17 roadblock in Ramallah for use in case of an IDF incursion into Ramallah.

Nasser sees Marwan Barghouti as both a supreme commander and a friend. In his words, the two of them planned their ascent into the Palestinian leadership when Barghouti made it clear that Nasser would advance along with him. Barghouti promised to build a special residential neighborhood for Nasser and his men and their families in the future. Nasser said that he was Barghouti’s closest adviser and was aware of the latter’s military activities, including the transfer of funds and war materiel to those who perpetrated attacks and assisting in the transport of suicide bombers.

The question of Arafat’s role

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are not a “rogue militia” as Arafat claimed in the past. Rather its members are on the Palestinian Authority’s payroll, it activities are financed out of Palestinian Authority coffers, and its attacks are carried out with the knowledge and backing of Yassir Arafat’s inner circle. In an interview with USA Today on March 14, 2002, Maslama Thabet, another leader of the Brigades, described the group as an integral part of Fatah. “The truth is, we are Fatah itself, but we don’t operate under the name Fatah. We are the armed wing of the organization. We receive our instructions from Fatah. Our commander is Yassir Arafat himself.”

Other leaders of the al-Aqsa Brigades insist that, while they hold Arafat in high esteem, they do not take their orders regarding individual attacks from him. At the same time, Israeli security officials maintain that Arafat exerts a large measure of control over all the Fatah-affiliated organizations, paying the salaries of their members and supplying them with weapons. And while he may not determine the target and timing of each individual attack, he definitely sets the overall agenda. In fact, this was true to a great extent even with regard to the “opposition” Islamist groups prior to the outbreak of hostilities. These organizations, while not directly controlled by Arafat, were still dependent upon his willingness to leave their military capabilities intact.

Moreover, Arafat remains in control of the media. This means that while Arafat’s credibility with his own people may suffer some erosion, his position as a symbol is unassailable. His popularity may be expected to weather the storm, if only because by controlling the media, Arafat controls the standards of popularity. From the outset, it was the official messages, disseminated through the radio, television and the PA-salaried preachers, that most strongly influenced the thinking of the Palestinian street. Terrorist attacks, formerly portrayed as a politically counter-productive tool to be used only as a last resort, are now hailed as the pinnacle of glory in the Palestinian cause. Having sold martyrdom as the highest goal for which every Palestinian child should strive, Arafat has been forced to match his actions (or at least the actions of those who take his orders) to his words.

The role of the Martyrs of al-Aqsa Brigades in rebuilding Fatah’s popularity has raised questions about Arafat’s power to restrain it. Many argue that any attempt by the Palestinian leader to rein in the militants now, when they are the key to his popularity, would only lead to a mutiny against his rule or to his assassination.

At the heart of Arafat’s dilemma is the need to continue to mobilize his society for conflict with Israel, despite the fact that he can present his people with no real achievements from the “intifada.” The ultimate victims of Palestinian terrorism have been the Palestinians themselves, due in large part to the failure of the Palestinian Authority to develop a self-sufficient economy. The livelihood of most Palestinians has always depended—directly or indirectly—on the earnings of Palestinians working in Israel. Since the outbreak of hostilities, Israel, fearful of terrorist attacks, has virtually closed its borders to Palestinian laborers. At the same time, tourism, a mainstay of both the Palestinian and the Israeli economies, has dropped to a trickle. Thus, Arafat is forced to continue to justify a war that, while saving him the need to address domestic concerns, has brought the Palestinian people nothing but grief. The same dilemma faces Arafat with respect to the activities of his own terrorist apparatus. Taken together, the Fatah groups enjoy the overwhelming support of Arafat’s constituency, and he has invested a great deal in keeping them armed and active, even while his civilian infrastructure languishes for lack of funds and attention. Here too, he must justify an investment that has so far failed to deliver any profit at all.

While the degree to which Arafat controls the Tanzim—and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades—is still subject to debate, most analysts are in agreement that his control is much greater than he makes it out to be.
 
 

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades work in close cooperation with other terrorist organizations operating in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip, and many of its attacks have been carrying out together with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This cooperation includes sharing of information and technical know-how, as well as the formation of “cocktail” cells.

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. To date, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have carried out more attacks on Israelis than its Islamist counterparts, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In March 2002, after a deadly al-Aqsa Brigades suicide bombing in Jerusalem, the U.S. State Department added the group to the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations. The designation makes it illegal under U.S. law to provide material support to the organization and requires banks to freeze its assets. The move marked the first time the Bush administration has taken active steps against an organization directly linked to Palestinian Chairman Yassir Arafat.
 

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Palestinian nationalists What are the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades? The brigades are a group of West Bank militias affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat’s al-Fatah Gunmen at funeral of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leader Raed Karmi, Tulkarm, West Bank, Jan. 2002. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh) faction and have been one of the driving forces behind the current Palestinian intifada (uprising). 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. Are the brigades an Islamist movement? No. The brigades began in 2000 as an offshoot of Fatah, the secular Palestinian nationalist movement led by Arafat. Fatah is the largest faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization. (When Israel and the PLO signed a peace deal in 1993, Arafat renounced terrorism and founded a new, Palestinian-led administration in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.) The al-Aqsa Brigades commit the same sort of suicide bombings widely associated with such Muslim fundamentalist groups as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but the group’s ideology is rooted in Palestinian nationalism, not political Islam. In early 2002, the al-Aqsa Brigades’ attacks killed more Israelis than those of Hamas. What sort of attacks do the brigades launch? Mostly shootings and suicide bombings, experts say, including attacks by female suicide bombers. Brigade members say they draw inspiration from Hezbollah, the Shiite Lebanese militia whose attacks drove Israel out of its self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon in 2000. Similarly, the brigades hope to drive Israel out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip by force. The group began by targeting Israeli roadblocks and settlers in the West Bank, but since shifting its tactics in early 2002, the brigades have claimed responsibility for some of the conflict’s most significant attacks, including: A pair of January 2003 suicide bombings in downtown Tel Aviv that killed 23 people and injured about 100 more, in one of the bloodiest attacks of the current Palestinian uprising; A November 2002 shooting spree at a kibbutz in northern Israel that killed five Israelis, including two children, and wounded seven more; A March 2002 suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed three Israelis, prompting Israel to call off ceasefire talks with Arafat’s Palestinian Authority; Another March 2002 suicide bombing in a Jerusalem café that killed 11 Israelis and wounded more than 50; A March 2002 sniper attack on an Israeli army checkpoint in the West Bank in which the gunman methodically killed 10Israelis, including seven Israeli soldiers, before escaping; A January 2002 suicide attack in Jerusalem by a female terrorist that killed an elderly man and wounded about 40 oother people. When did the group begin to target civilians inside Israel? Experts say the shift began in early 2002, when the Palestinian death toll in the current uprising was nearing 1,000 and the popularity of Arafat’s secular Fatah faction was waning in comparison to the Islamist militants of Hamas. (Polls say that most Palestinians support suicide bombings.) The al-Aqsa Brigades’ attacks became more deadly after January 2002, when the group’s West Bank leader, Raed Karmi, was killed in an explosion—widely believed in the region to have been a “targeted killing” by Israeli forces. The al-Aqsa Brigades claim that deaths of women and children in their attacks are accidental. Does Arafat control the brigades? Arafat’s advisers say he does not; Israeli officials say he does; and different leaders of the group tell different stories about whether they take their orders from Arafat. “Our group is an integral part of Fatah,” Maslama Thabet, one of the group’s 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.” But another of the group’s leaders, 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. Palestinian officials have said that most of the group’s members are on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority, often because they serve in both the brigades and in one of Arafat’s 14 formal security services. In April 2002, Israel captured Marwan Barghouti, the West Bank leader of Arafat’s Fatah and a leading figure in the brigades. In June 2002, President Bush decided to call for Arafat’s removal after receiving Israeli intelligence reports showing that Arafat had approved a $20,000 payment to the brigades. What does the name al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades mean? The group’s name refers to the al-Aqsa Mosque, located atop the contested Jerusalem holy site known by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount, and to Palestinians killed in the current intifada. Arabs refer to the uprising, which began in September 2000 after a controversial walk atop that holy site by Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon, as the al-Aqsa intifada. Muslim tradition holds that the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven from the site of the al-Aqsa Mosque, whose name is Arabic for “the farthest place.” The individual militias that make up the group are often named after recently killed Palestinian militants.

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