- Aug 10, 2001
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Deadly al-Aqsa militants emerge
March 5 ? As the battle between the Israeli military and Palestinian militants has escalated, one group has come to the fore, claiming responsibility for dozens of deaths in the last weeks. They call themselves the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a secret group fiercely loyal to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and associated with his Fatah organization. In an exclusive interview with NBC News, members of this shadowy group said that if Arafat asked them to stop the violence, they would.
THE MILITANT HAMAS and the Islamic Jihad have become the most familiar names associated with suicide bombings and attacks on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has a policy of assassinating suspected leaders of these groups.
But in the recent spate of violence, al-Aqsa has launched some of the deadliest attacks, and climbed to the top of Israel?s hit list. Emerging in the last year or two, the group has attacked Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, and civilians in Tel Aviv.
Most recently, an al-Aqsa suicide bomber killed 10 Israelis in Jerusalem on Saturday. Then on Sunday, one of their snipers killed another 10 Israelis, including seven soldiers, systematically picking them off with a vintage sniper?s rifle from a concealed location, and then escaping.
The brigade works in complete secrecy ? a few hundred men, operating in cells. They take bombs into discos, onto buses and into restaurants where, inevitably, innocent civilians are killed.
March 5 ? As the battle between the Israeli military and Palestinian militants has escalated, one group has come to the fore, claiming responsibility for dozens of deaths in the last weeks. They call themselves the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a secret group fiercely loyal to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and associated with his Fatah organization. In an exclusive interview with NBC News, members of this shadowy group said that if Arafat asked them to stop the violence, they would.
THE MILITANT HAMAS and the Islamic Jihad have become the most familiar names associated with suicide bombings and attacks on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has a policy of assassinating suspected leaders of these groups.
But in the recent spate of violence, al-Aqsa has launched some of the deadliest attacks, and climbed to the top of Israel?s hit list. Emerging in the last year or two, the group has attacked Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, and civilians in Tel Aviv.
Most recently, an al-Aqsa suicide bomber killed 10 Israelis in Jerusalem on Saturday. Then on Sunday, one of their snipers killed another 10 Israelis, including seven soldiers, systematically picking them off with a vintage sniper?s rifle from a concealed location, and then escaping.
The brigade works in complete secrecy ? a few hundred men, operating in cells. They take bombs into discos, onto buses and into restaurants where, inevitably, innocent civilians are killed.
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