Palestinian nationalists

What are the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades?

The 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 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. 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 March 21 suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed three Israelis, prompting Israel to call off cease-fire talks with Arafat's Palestinian Authority;
•  A March 9 suicide bombing in a Jerusalem cafe that killed 11 Israelis and wounded more than 50;
•  A deadly March 3 sniper attack on an Israeli army checkpoint in the West Bank in which the gunman methodically killed ten Israelis, including seven Israeli soldiers, before escaping;
•  A March 2 suicide bombing in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem that killed nine Israelis, including six children;
•  A January 27 suicide attack in Jerusalem by a female terrorist that killed an elderly man and wounded about 40 more.

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 Yasser 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.

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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