Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين – القيادة العامة | |
---|---|
General Secretary | Political parties |
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (
It was founded in 1968 by
Since the late 1980s PFLP-GC had been largely inactive in military activities, but re-emerged during the
The group has a paramilitary wing called the Jihad Jibril Brigades.[6]
Background
Jibril joined with
Jibril decided that Hawatmeh's theorizing was chafing the PFLP and producing an organization of impotent intellectuals, and declared as such when he formed the General Command. Habash, he stated, had become a puppet to the professors of the exile, the elite among the refugees who were well-educated and wealthy, yet preached class revolution to the masses in the camps.
History
Formation
The PFLP-GC was founded in 1968 as a Syrian-backed splinter group from the
Although the group was initially a member of the
From the start, the PFLP-GC was more concentrated on means than ends. They never depended on a political platform; most of their recruits were young, exiled, poor, illiterate, and angry. The General Command promised a gun in every hand, and the means to write their own narrative rather than read and praise those of others as the better off exiles did in universities in Europe.
Jibril still used iron discipline to keep his fighters loyal and professional, and the General Command's insurgents were as a result for decades considered the best trained of any of the Palestinian guerrilla groups. What may have helped Jibril was Hawatmeh's own 1969 defection from the PFLP to form the
1970s and 1980s
In the 1970s and 1980s, the group carried out a number of attacks on Israeli soldiers and
From 1970 to 1973, the group targeted a number of aircraft; typically having members seduce single young women and promise them a life of adventure and love – often while getting them addicted to drugs – before asking them to carry some cash and a mysterious package onto a flight to Tel Aviv. While the girls assumed they were helping their "boyfriends" pass drugs, they were unknowingly carrying explosives.[7]
On 21 February 1970, the group used its first
Jibril focused on carving out a stake of the PLO recruitment in Lebanese refugee camps. While Fatah absorbed enormous casualties in the 1982 Lebanon War, the General Command succeeded in surviving, and at the end retained most of its previous manpower.[citation needed]
In one of its most famous attacks, a PFLP-GC guerrilla landed a motorized
The PFLP-GC has not been involved in major attacks on Israeli targets since the early 1990s, but it reportedly cooperated with the Hezbollah guerrillas in South Lebanon.[citation needed]
Supporters of the Libyan convicted of the
1990s and 2000s
Following the rise of Hamas in the 1987–1991
Though many Palestinians still were opposed to compromising on the principle of defeating Israel by armed struggle, the existing groups could not channel their desires, as many of them were led by the elite among the exile population, who were detached from the reality of the refugee camps, be they in the West Bank and Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, or Jordan. Many leaders of Palestinian groups lived in luxurious accommodations throughout the Eastern Bloc, Europe, or various Arab states, especially Syria, Iraq, and Libya. Jibril uniquely insisted on living in a specially designed security bunker in the Lebanon mountains, a hilly terrain that was more attuned to the image of a guerrilla leader than Arafat's mansions in Tunis.
With the emergence of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad throughout the 1980s, Jibril proved more able to cope than Habash and his other allies in the Rejectionist Front. This was enabled by a factor that had nothing to do with his abilities or beliefs: While Habash was a
Throughout the 1980s the General Command actively cooperated with the nascent
Syrian Civil War
During the war, the PFLP-FC supported the
On 3 August 2012, 21 civilians were killed when the Syrian Army shelled Yarmouk.[15] Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Syrian Army for shelling the camp and chided the PFLP-GC for dragging Palestinians into the conflict.[16]
On 5 December 2012,
Many PFLP-GC fighters reportedly defected to the rebels.[
International relations of PFLP-GC
Lebanon
Its role in Lebanon after the Syrian Army Left Lebanon in 2005 (see
Syria
At the beginning of the
Designations of PFLP-GC as a terrorist organization
Country | Date | References |
Canada | [24] | |
United Kingdom | June 2014 | [25] |
Japan | 2002 | [26] |
United States | 8 October 1997 | [27] |
See also
- List of armed groups in the Syrian Civil War
- Jibril Agreement
References
- ^ Cronin, Audrey Kurth; Aden, Huda; Frost, Adam; Jones, Benjamin (February 2004). "CRS Report for Congress RL32223". Congressional Research Service.
- .
- JSTOR 48600047.
- Associated Press News. June 2023.
- ^ "Syrian rebels take over Palestinian camp in Damascus". Reuters. 17 December 2012. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
- ^ "PFLP-GC divided on Syria stance" Archived 13 April 2013 at archive.today. Ma'an News Agency, 9 August 2012. Retrieved 26 February 2013.
- ^ a b Katz, Samuel M. (2002). Relentless Pursuit: The DSS and the manhunt for the al-Qaeda terrorists.
- ^ "Sponsoring Terrorism: Syria and the PFLP-GC" (September 2002) Archived 11 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "News".
- ^ "Die linke Opposition in der PLO und in den besetzten Gebiete".
- ^ Middle East International No 316, 9 January 1988, Publishers Lord Mayhew, Dennis Walters MP; Jim Muir p.16
- ^ The German Connection, Emerson & Duffy, New York Times Magazine, 11 March 1990
- ^ "Report: 14 Palestinians killed in Syria camp" Archived 29 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Ma'an News Agency, 8 June 2011. Retrieved 26 February 2013.
- ^ "Mass shooting reported in Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Syria – video". The Electronic Intifada, 6 June 2011. Retrieved 26 February 2013.
- ^ "At least 21 killed in shelling on Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Syria: NGO" Archived 20 December 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Al Arabiya, 3 August 2012.
- ^ a b "AFP: Syria rebels 'clash with army, Palestinian fighters'". Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 12 November 2016.
- ^ "Capturing Yarmouk camp another Syrian rebel gain". 30 January 2011. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
- ^ "Syrian fight now 'overtly sectarian,' U.N. says". CNN, 20 December 2012.
- ^ "A Syrian Airstrike Kills Palestinian Refugees and Costs Assad Support". The New York Times. 17 December 2012.
- ^ "Palestinian faction leader Jibril leaves Damascus: rebels". Reuters. 15 December 2012. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
- ^ a b "PFLP on Defense in Gaza Over Ties to Assad" Archived 16 February 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Al-Monitor, 27 December 2012.
- ^ a b "Ahmad Jibril to be expelled from the PLO" Archived 3 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine. Al Akhbar (Lebanon), 18 December 2012.
- ^ "Outrage after PFLP-GC gunmen shoot two". The Daily Star Newspaper – Lebanon.
- ^ "About the listing process". Retrieved 17 November 2014.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 August 2014. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "MOFA: Implementation of the Measures including the Freezing of Assets against Terrorists and the Like". Archived from the original on 6 April 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
- ^ "Foreign Terrorist Organizations". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
External links
This article has an unclear citation style. (September 2009) |
- "Official site". Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. Retrieved 27 July 2006. (in Arabic)
- Terrorism Resources. Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) (U.S. Navy) Source: Country Reports on Terrorism, 2004. United States Department of State, April 2005.
- Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) Archived 4 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine (ICT)
- The International Dimension of PFLP-GC Activity Archived 1 July 2006 at the Wayback Machine by David Tal. The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. JCSS Project on Low Intensity Warfare & The Jerusalem Post INTER – International Terrorism in 1989 (pp. 61–77) Tel-Aviv, 1990
- Collection of PFLP-GC posters
Further reading
- Katz, Samuel M.Israel versus Jibril: The Thirty-year War Against a Master Terrorist. New York: Paragon House, 1993.