 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
|
"AL AQSA MARTYRS BRIGADE" - MILITARY ARM OF FATAH; MARWAN BARGHOUTI CONDUCTING THE "BRIGADES" AGAINST ISRAEL Early on during the Al Aqsa Intifada, the Fatah reconstituted, consolidated and expanded its military wing, in a move designed to unite all Fatah fighters and improve the armed struggle against Israel. The new body, the armed militias, were called the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and include most of the fighters within the Fatah (PLO). The power bases in the movement's leadership are located in Nablus and Ramallah. The direct involvement of Marwan Barghouti, who heads the PLO in Judea & Samaria, in directing Brigade's attacks, was recently exposed. Findings from the interrogation of Fatah activists who shot and murdered a Greek Orthodox monk near Jerusalem on June 14th 2001 (they mistook him for a Jew) confirmed that Barghouti had instructed the activists to perpetrate the attack and had even financed it. It would appear that Mahmud Damrah, a commander in the presidential Force 17 in Ramallah, was involved in organizing terror attacks perpetrated by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is part of the Fatah movement, is loyal to the movement's ideology, and translates the movement's political line into terrorist activity against Israel. The Brigades view the armed struggle as the only way to "free Palestine," and on this basis consider terrorist attacks and the murder of Israeli civilians to be legitimate ways of serving their key national goals as well as their intermediate objective of forcing the Israeli settlers to abandon their settlements by force of arms. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have established an organizational structure which operates through the terrorist organizations, and includes: "military units" responsible for carrying out the attacks, and "security units" which are responsible for planning the attacks and the organization's internal security. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades work in close cooperation with other terrorist organizations (particularly the Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front) operating in Judea & Samaria and the Gaza Strip. This cooperation includes: setting the policy of attacks, carrying out the attacks by joint terrorist cells, the purchase and transfer of weapons and explosives, sharing know-how and information. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, armed with a variety of weapons (including mortars and anti-tank missiles) have in recent months carried out hundreds of terror attacks (shooting from automatic and semi-automatic weapons, planting explosive devices, firing mortars) against Israel, including inside the "Seam Line" (and Jerusalem), and they repeatedly threaten to carry out organized attacks against Israeli civilians in Israeli settlements in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.
|
