Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

20 • ‘AMALSince 1990, Amal has consistently supported Syria’s military and politicalpresence in Lebanon and also has allied itself with Hezbollah inconflicts with other Lebanese groups. Nabih Berri was elected speakerof parliament in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2005. Recently Amal has held14 of the 128 seats in the parliament. In the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war,Amal volunteers fought alongside Hezbollah members; eight Amalmembers were reported to have been killed in this conflict.‘AMAL. The Islamic Action (“‘Amal”) Organization was one of anumber of Shi’ite Islamic fundamentalist groups within Iraq thatsought to overthrow the former Ba’thist government in that country.Despite the similarity between the transliteration of its Arabic nameand that of the Amal group in Lebanon, these are different organizationshaving no direct ties with one another. The ‘Amal group wasindependent of the al Da’wa group in Iraq, which is the largest ofthe Shi’ite Muslim fundamentalist groups in Iraq. Both organizationshave become affiliated with the umbrella group known as the SupremeAssembly for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, created in 1982and headquartered in Tehran, Iran. Since 2003 the umbrella grouphas been known as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolutionin Iraq and is the largest party in the Iraqi United Alliance that hasgoverned since the 15 December 2005 election established the currentIraqi government.ANANDA MARG. The Indian Hindu group Ananda Marg (Path ofEternal Bliss) was a nonstate mystical and religious sect devoted tothe worship of the Hindu god Shiva and his consort goddess, Kali,both associated with death and destruction, and to the practice ofTantric yoga. Followers of this sect undertook terrorist activities inthe period 1975–1978 for the limited purpose of freeing their founder,Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, who had been imprisoned in India in 1971for the alleged murder of sect members. This sect comprises a largenumber of American, Australian, and European followers, both intheir home countries as well as in India. These non-Indian followershad engaged in attacks on Indian diplomatic targets abroad, givingan international terrorist character to what otherwise might have beendismissed as a rather minor sectarian, domestic Indian phenomenon.Within India, on 2 January 1975 Ananda Margists killed NarayanMishra, India’s Minister of Railways, in a bombing, killing two and