Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

ARAB LIBERATION FRONT • 35surrounding González’s alleged involvement cost his Socialist Partythe parliamentary election in March 1996.AQSA MARTYRS’ BRIGADE, AL (AL AQSA). The al Kata’ib ashShahoda al Aqsa, also known since 11 November 2004 as the Brigadesof Shahid (Martyr) Yasir Arafat, is a Palestinian ethnonationalistgroup associated with al Fatah dedicated to carrying out assassinations,suicide bombings, and rocket attacks on Israeli soldiers andsettlers. The group originated following the outbreak of the secondintifada in September 2000 and takes its name from al Aqsa Mosque,located on the Temple Mount, where the intifada erupted following thevisit of Likud Party leader Minister Ariel Sharon to that site. Originallyal Aqsa limited its attacks to Israeli soldiers and settlers in the WestBank and Gaza, but beginning in early 2002 it began targeting Israelicivilians and tourists within Israel proper. Although Yasir Arafat deniedany direct control over al Aqsa, Israel claimed to have evidenceof al Fatah’s financial support of the group and arrested al Fatah leaderMarwan Barghouti in April 2002 on murder charges arising from theattacks carried out by al Aqsa. On 18 December 2003 al Aqsa wasadmitted to the Fatah Council, and in June 2004 Palestinian AuthorityPresident Mahmoud Abbas admitted that al Aqsa was part of al Fatah.Al Aqsa claims to have staged some of its bombings in cooperationwith Hamas and Islamic Jihad of Palestine.Some of the more remarkable al Aqsa bombings include the following:the 2 March 2002 bombing in Jerusalem killing 11, whichled the U.S. Department of State to designate the group as a ForeignTerrorist Organization. Al Aqsa carried out the 5 January 2003 attackon a southern Tel Aviv bus station that killed 22 people and the 29January 2004 attack on a bus line 19 in Rehavia, Jerusalem, that killed11. In January 2002 a female al Aqsa member carried out a suicidebombing, the first use of a female volunteer by any of the Palestinianterrorist groups. On 10 July 2006 Reuters reported the existence of anall-female brigade unit that claimed responsibility for seven bombingsin 2000–2006 that killed 37 people and injured 250.ARAB LIBERATION FRONT (ALF). The Jabha al Tahrir al Arabiya,or Arab Liberation Front, was an Iraqi-sponsored Palestinian militiagroup numbering about 500 militants. While this group’s purportedgoal was to establish an independent Palestinian state, the Iraqi