Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

ISLAMIC JIHAD • 305with the Shi’ite militia Islamic Jihad of Lebanon. See also MUNAZ-ZAMAT AL JIHAD.3. Islamic Jihad of Palestine: The Harakat al Jihad al Islami fiFilastin, or Movement of the Islamic Jihad in Palestine, commonlyreferred to as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), is a small (numberingless than 1,000 members) Islamic fundamentalist and nationalistseparatistgroup enjoying both Syrian and Iranian state sponsorship.Iran is believed to support the PIJ with $2 million annually,while several PIJ members are believed to have received IslamicRevolutionary Guards Corps training in eastern Lebanon whenmembers of the group were exiled there by Israel in the period 1987–1993. Syria allows the PIJ to maintain its headquarters in Damascus.The PIJ was the first Palestinian group to adopt campaigns of suicidebombings as a major tactic in its struggle against Israel, and it isbelieved its members learned this technique from their Iranian mentors.The PIJ is Sunni, and many of its members originally were partof the Muslim Brotherhood branch in Gaza City but broke awayfrom the Brotherhood in order to take a more activist course againstIsrael. The PIJ identifies itself with the older Islamic Jihad groupthat had existed in the 1930s. During the British Mandate in Palestine,the increase of Jewish settlers in the 1930s prompted an Arabbacklash involving riots in Jerusalem and attacks on isolated Jewishsettlements. The Arab riots were also directed against the British asprotectors of the Zionist settlers. Muslim resistance to British controland Jewish settlement took the form of the guerrilla group known asIslamic Jihad, formed in the 1920s by Sheikh Izzidin al Qassim, wholed attacks on both Jewish settlers and British Mandate authoritiesuntil he was finally killed by the British in 1936. Action units of thePIJ have been called the Izzidin al Qassim Brigades in honor of thefounder of the original Islamic Jihad group, though later on the PIJalso credited its actions in the name of the al Quds Brigade.The modern PIJ was founded by Fathi Shaqaqi and Shaykh AbdulazizAwda in Gaza in the 1970s, taking their inspiration from theIslamic revolution in Iran to pursue a more activist strategy than thatbeing then followed by the Muslim Brotherhood. The PIJ adopted acellular structure and a system of identifying members by six-digitnumbers rather than names. By 1984 collaboration developed betweenmembers of the PIJ and the Muslim Brotherhood. By 1987 this cooperationgrew to include coordination with the more secular Palestine