INDEPTH: MIDDLE EAST
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
CBC News Online | Updated Oct. 20, 2005
The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades is a Palestinian militant group that has carried out attacks on Israeli military and civilians. The group has been on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organizations since March 2002. Canada added the group to its list of entities under the Anti-Terrorism Act in April 2003.
The Brigades is widely considered to be the armed wing of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, but various media organizations have differed in how to describe their relationship. Some call the Brigades a group with "loose ties" to Fatah or a "violent offshoot," while others imply a much closer link.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia has referred to the Brigades as Fatah's "military wing."
The group takes its name from the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, which stands at the top of what Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. The latest Palestinian uprising occurred after Ariel Sharon, then leader of the opposition right-wing Likud party, visited the holy site in early September 2000. The mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, has been closed to non-Muslims ever since.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades formed in October 2000 in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus. Members of Fatah, the largest group within the Palestinian Liberation Organization, met there to plan more violent attacks against Israel.
On March 2, 2002, the Brigades committed a suicide bombing in Jerusalem, killing 11 people. That attack prompted the U.S. to add the group to its list of foreign terrorist organizations.
In January 2003, another Brigades suicide bomb killed 22 people at a bus station in Tel Aviv.
Since then the Brigades has committed several other attacks, suicide bombings and drive-by shootings, on Israeli and Palestinian targets.
Most recently the Brigades claimed responsibility for the Oct. 16, 2005, shooting in the West Bank settlement of Gush Etzion that killed three Israelis.
^TOP
|
|
 |
 MENU |
|
|
| MORE: |
|
|
|
