Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

382 • LEBANESE ARMED REVOLUTIONARY FACTIONSWhile there have been a few unusually gifted leaders having bothcharismatic and entrepreneurial skills, Napoleon Bonaparte andGeorge Washington being examples, it is more typically the casethat the entrepreneurial skills are found in a close lieutenant of thecharismatic leader, who is often the successor in the line of leadership,or else in a small inner circle of followers. A recent exampleof this would be the roles within al Qa’eda played by Osama binLaden, who is the charismatic figure, and Ayman al Zawahiri, whois believed to be the managerial and administrative talent maintainingthe group’s survival and operations. The perpetuation of a terrorist,political, or religious group requires that the charisma of the founderbe somehow routinized in offices, traditions, institutions, and proceduresthat continue to inspire and mold the group and its agenda. Ifthe original leaders succeed in this task, then the terrorist group that isformed may well be able to continue to exist, operate, and grow evenif the original leaders are captured or killed. Thus the Red ArmyFaction was able to survive the capture and suicides of its foundingleaders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof for nearly three decadesbefore it finally ceased its armed struggle.LEBANESE ARMED REVOLUTIONARY FACTIONS (FARL).The Factions Armées Revolutionnaires Libanaises, formed in 1979,was a Lebanese revolutionary group seeking to create a Marxist-Leninist state in Lebanon. Although this group was one of the threegroups that emerged from the breakup of the Popular Front for theLiberation of Palestine–Special Operations Group (PFLP-SOG) uponthe death of its leader, Wadi Haddad, in 1978, most of its membershave been Lebanese Christians rather than Palestinians. The FARLopposed the Phalange party as well as foreign supporters of the constitutionalgovernment of Lebanon, in particular, the United States,France, and Israel, and also sought to demonstrate its revolutionaryaffinity with the Palestinian cause by attacking Israeli targets outsideLebanon. The group collaborated with the French Direct Actionand Italian Red Brigades groups and was suspected of having tieswith Hezbollah. The FARL was believed to number only about 25members and was led by George Ibrahim Abdullah (aliases: Salih alMasri, Abdul-Qadir Saadi), who joined the group after 1978.The FARL conducted at least 18 noteworthy actions from 1981until 1987, including four assassinations, two assassination attempts,