Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

56 • ASBAT AL ANSAROn 25 June 2003 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alertedlaw enforcement agencies of an alleged al Qa’eda plot to use threeto four people to plant timed incendiary devices to start forest firesand rangeland fires in the states of Colorado, Montana, Utah, andWyoming. In August 2006 Spanish authorities arrested 14 peopleon suspicion of having deliberately set several of the 100 forestfires devastating the northwestern regions of Spain. An EmergencyResponse Research Institute alert at that time indicated that Spanishauthorities believed these arsons were related to a radical Islamicfundamentalist plan to create economic havoc in Western nations.ASBAT AL ANSAR. Also known as the League of the Followers andas the Partisans’ League, Asbat al Ansar is a Lebanon-based SalafistIslamic fundamentalist terrorist group seeking the establishmentof an Islamic state in Lebanon and generally opposing the secularand Western-oriented culture prevailing in modern Lebanon. Thegroup, believed to be linked to al Qa’eda, has assassinated religiousleaders, bombed nightclubs, movie theaters, and liquor stores, andclashed occasionally with al Fatah forces at Palestinian refugeecamps. In January 2000 the group attacked the Russian embassy inBeirut with a rocket-propelled grenade. In 2002 and 2003 the groupbombed several fast-food restaurants. The group’s leader, AhmadAbdulkarim as-Sa’idi, also known as Abu Mahjin, was believed to beconnected with al Qa’eda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, andremains at large despite having been sentenced to death in absentiafor the assassination of a Muslim cleric in 1994.ASSASSIN. Term for those who commit assassination, but also thename applied to the Isma’ili Fedayin. See FEDAYEEN.ASSASSINATION. The deliberate murder or killing of political ormilitary figures, or of ordinary civilians, for political or criminal orpersonal ends, assassination is perhaps the oldest and most fundamentalof the terrorist tools. The Isma’ili Fedayeen attacked highsecular and religious authorities of the Sunni Abbasid dynasty usingcorps of assassins willing to undertake attacks in which the individualassassin was certain to be killed or captured. To counter the awe andrespect these bold attacks created among the common people, apologistsof the Abbasid dynasty alleged that the attackers were reallyHashshishin, those acting under the influence of hashish. This termbecame the source of the word assassin.