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Backgrounder: Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade

Council on Foreign Relations

Author: Holly Fletcher

April 2, 2008

Introduction

The Palestinian group al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade evolved in recent years from a Fatah linked coalition of militias seeking an end to Israel’s presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip into a more radical organization. Emerging around the time of what Palestinians call the “Second Intifada” in 2000, the brigade at first targeted Israeli settlers and military outposts. But its decision to join Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and target civilians in Israeli cities in 2002 prompted the U.S. State Department to list the brigade as a terrorist organization and led Washington to abandon efforts to deal with the Palestinian president, the late Yasir Arafat.

What is the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade?

The brigade is a network of West Bank militias affiliated with former Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat’s Fatah faction and has been one of the driving forces behind the what Palestinians call the “Second” or “Al-Aqsa 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 joined Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in a spree of terrorist attacks against civilians in Israeli cities. In March 2002, after a deadly al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade suicide bombing in Jerusalem, the State Department added the group to the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations, and ceased regarding Arafat as a viable partner in peace negotiations.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade consists of localized, autonomous units that mostly act independently of each other, united under a common alliance to Fatah, according to the State Department. Due to its decentralized power structure, U.S. intelligence officials often have difficulty identifying leaders of the organization.

In 2004 the brigade engaged in a ceasefire with Israel but resumed attacks when Hamas won Palestinian elections in 2006, according to the State Department.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.