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As-Sa'iqa
As-Sa'iqa (Arabic: الصَّاعِقَة, romanized: aṣ-Ṣāʽiqa, lit. 'Thunderbolt'), officially known as Vanguard for the Popular Liberation War – Lightning Forces, (Arabic: طَلائِع حَرْب التَّحْرِير الشَّعْبِيَّة - قُوَّات الصَّاعِقَة, romanized: Ṭalāʼiʽ Ḥarb at-Taḥrīr aš-Šaʽbiyya - Quwwāt aṣ-Ṣāʽiqa) is a Palestinian Ba'athist political and military faction created by Syria. It is linked to the Palestinian branch of the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party, and is a member of the broader Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), although it is no longer active in the organization. Its Secretary-General is Dr. Mohammed Qeis.
As-Sa'iqa's roots go back to the 1966 coup d'état in Syria. This military coup overthrew National Command purged the Ba'ath Party (which had come to power three years earlier) of its "old guard" and the founders of Ba'athism in general, sending people like Michel Aflaq and Salah ad-Din al-Bitar into exile and sentencing them to death in absentia.
The coup brought to power the most radical Ba'athist faction, which later became known as neo-Ba'athism. The main ideologist of neo-Ba'athism and organizer of the 1966 coup was the military general Salah Jadid, who began indirect but complete rule of Syria. Jadid was very radical, and carried out the same radical policies, both domestic and foreign. Domestically, he actively promoted and tried to harshly implement ideas bordering on communism, actively persecuted any religion, and intensified state terror in the country. In a result, Jadid successfully built a totalitarian and Marxist–Leninist state (sometimes called "Neo-Marxist" by outside observers) with brutal repression. Outwardly, he moved closer to the Soviet Union and pursued very aggressive, provocative and in many ways reckless rhetoric against Israel. At the same time, his relations with much of the Arab world were also poor: his neo-Ba'athist regime was basically indifferent to pan-Arab issues except for Palestine, and almost all of the Jadid's rule Syria was isolated from most of the Arab states.
The Jadid's regime pursued hardline policies and calling for the mobilization of a people's war (Maoist guerilla tactics) against Zionism, which was expressed in its huge support for leftist Palestinian fedayeen groups, granting them considerable autonomy and allowing them to carry out attacks on Israel from Syrian territory: Jadid continued supporting that concept even after catasrophic Six-Day War in 1967.[page needed] Israel has repeatedly accused Syria of supporting Palestinian groups and their acts of violence. At the end of May 1967, the headlines of Syrian newspapers clearly stated that for the neo-Ba'athist regime, war was the only solution to the "Israeli problem". According to Israeli sources, the regime in Syria initiated 177 border incidents and aided 75 Palestinian terrorist incidents between 23 February 1966 and 15 May 1967.
Just a few months after the coup, in September, Jadid's regime completed the formation of the Palestinian paramilitary Ba'athist group called as-Sa'iqa, which carried out attacks on Israel from Jordanian and Lebanese territory, but was completely under the control of the neo-Ba'athist regime in Syria. As-Sa'iqa became a very important guerrilla group for the Jadid regime: it was present in neighboring Arab countries and also diminished the role of other fedayeen groups in Syria that were not created by him. For example, after the creation of as-Sa'iqa, Fatah (another fedayeen group), under Syrian pressure, was forced to move its bases and training camps from Syria to Jordan. Syria-controlled as-Saiqa successfully replaced the uncontrolled Fatah. The group became active in December 1968, as a member of the PLO. Syria tried to build up an alternative to Yasser Arafat, who was then emerging with his Fatah faction as the primary Palestinian fedayeen leader and politician. As-Sa'iqa was initially the second-largest group within the PLO, after Fatah.
After the Six-Day War, the conflict between Jadid and Hafez al-Assad, the defense minister, became very intense. Assad believed that Jadid's radicalism and aggressive policies had failed Syria and that a more moderate approach to the domestic and foreign policy situation was required. Although Jadid's regime gave a lot of support to the leftist fedayeen, Assad already then considered this a bad decision. In Assad's opinion, the militants were given too much autonomy in attacks on Israel, which provoked the Six-Day War: he demanded a strong reduction in the autonomy of the fedayeen and the transfer of control over them to the army.[verification needed] Assad also disagreed with the very essence of the concept of "people's war" promoted by Jadid.
The conflict often escalated from heated verbal disputes to military clashes between supporters of both sides: for example in 1969, Assad staged something very much like a coup, during which an important ally of Jadid and the director of the National Security Bureau (the central command of all Syrian mukhabarats, i.e. intelligence services) Abdul-Karim al-Jundi shot himself.[verification needed] Since the start of the conflict between Assad and Jadid, the Palestinian fedayeen have become another lever for the various factions who struggle for power. For example, as-Sa'iqa for those years had expanded into a large militia of thousands of fighters by 1969: Jadid used it as a counterweight to armed Assad's supporters.
As a result, as-Sa'iqa was unable to help Jadid stay in power. When al-Assad seized power in the November 1970 "Corrective Revolution", as-Sa'iqa was purged and its leaders replaced with al-Assad loyalists (although Jadid loyalists held on to the as-Sai'qa branch active in the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan until mid-1971, when they were arrested). As new Secretary-General (after Mahmud al-Ma'ayta, who had succeeded Yusuf Zuayyin), al-Assad chose Zuheir Mohsen, a Palestinian Ba'thist who had come to Syria as a refugee from Jordan. He was repeatedly promoted by Syria as a candidate for the post of PLO chairman, to replace Arafat, but never gained support from other factions. By some estimates, by 1983, about 70 percent of all as-Sa'iqa militants were Syrians.
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As-Sa'iqa
As-Sa'iqa (Arabic: الصَّاعِقَة, romanized: aṣ-Ṣāʽiqa, lit. 'Thunderbolt'), officially known as Vanguard for the Popular Liberation War – Lightning Forces, (Arabic: طَلائِع حَرْب التَّحْرِير الشَّعْبِيَّة - قُوَّات الصَّاعِقَة, romanized: Ṭalāʼiʽ Ḥarb at-Taḥrīr aš-Šaʽbiyya - Quwwāt aṣ-Ṣāʽiqa) is a Palestinian Ba'athist political and military faction created by Syria. It is linked to the Palestinian branch of the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party, and is a member of the broader Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), although it is no longer active in the organization. Its Secretary-General is Dr. Mohammed Qeis.
As-Sa'iqa's roots go back to the 1966 coup d'état in Syria. This military coup overthrew National Command purged the Ba'ath Party (which had come to power three years earlier) of its "old guard" and the founders of Ba'athism in general, sending people like Michel Aflaq and Salah ad-Din al-Bitar into exile and sentencing them to death in absentia.
The coup brought to power the most radical Ba'athist faction, which later became known as neo-Ba'athism. The main ideologist of neo-Ba'athism and organizer of the 1966 coup was the military general Salah Jadid, who began indirect but complete rule of Syria. Jadid was very radical, and carried out the same radical policies, both domestic and foreign. Domestically, he actively promoted and tried to harshly implement ideas bordering on communism, actively persecuted any religion, and intensified state terror in the country. In a result, Jadid successfully built a totalitarian and Marxist–Leninist state (sometimes called "Neo-Marxist" by outside observers) with brutal repression. Outwardly, he moved closer to the Soviet Union and pursued very aggressive, provocative and in many ways reckless rhetoric against Israel. At the same time, his relations with much of the Arab world were also poor: his neo-Ba'athist regime was basically indifferent to pan-Arab issues except for Palestine, and almost all of the Jadid's rule Syria was isolated from most of the Arab states.
The Jadid's regime pursued hardline policies and calling for the mobilization of a people's war (Maoist guerilla tactics) against Zionism, which was expressed in its huge support for leftist Palestinian fedayeen groups, granting them considerable autonomy and allowing them to carry out attacks on Israel from Syrian territory: Jadid continued supporting that concept even after catasrophic Six-Day War in 1967.[page needed] Israel has repeatedly accused Syria of supporting Palestinian groups and their acts of violence. At the end of May 1967, the headlines of Syrian newspapers clearly stated that for the neo-Ba'athist regime, war was the only solution to the "Israeli problem". According to Israeli sources, the regime in Syria initiated 177 border incidents and aided 75 Palestinian terrorist incidents between 23 February 1966 and 15 May 1967.
Just a few months after the coup, in September, Jadid's regime completed the formation of the Palestinian paramilitary Ba'athist group called as-Sa'iqa, which carried out attacks on Israel from Jordanian and Lebanese territory, but was completely under the control of the neo-Ba'athist regime in Syria. As-Sa'iqa became a very important guerrilla group for the Jadid regime: it was present in neighboring Arab countries and also diminished the role of other fedayeen groups in Syria that were not created by him. For example, after the creation of as-Sa'iqa, Fatah (another fedayeen group), under Syrian pressure, was forced to move its bases and training camps from Syria to Jordan. Syria-controlled as-Saiqa successfully replaced the uncontrolled Fatah. The group became active in December 1968, as a member of the PLO. Syria tried to build up an alternative to Yasser Arafat, who was then emerging with his Fatah faction as the primary Palestinian fedayeen leader and politician. As-Sa'iqa was initially the second-largest group within the PLO, after Fatah.
After the Six-Day War, the conflict between Jadid and Hafez al-Assad, the defense minister, became very intense. Assad believed that Jadid's radicalism and aggressive policies had failed Syria and that a more moderate approach to the domestic and foreign policy situation was required. Although Jadid's regime gave a lot of support to the leftist fedayeen, Assad already then considered this a bad decision. In Assad's opinion, the militants were given too much autonomy in attacks on Israel, which provoked the Six-Day War: he demanded a strong reduction in the autonomy of the fedayeen and the transfer of control over them to the army.[verification needed] Assad also disagreed with the very essence of the concept of "people's war" promoted by Jadid.
The conflict often escalated from heated verbal disputes to military clashes between supporters of both sides: for example in 1969, Assad staged something very much like a coup, during which an important ally of Jadid and the director of the National Security Bureau (the central command of all Syrian mukhabarats, i.e. intelligence services) Abdul-Karim al-Jundi shot himself.[verification needed] Since the start of the conflict between Assad and Jadid, the Palestinian fedayeen have become another lever for the various factions who struggle for power. For example, as-Sa'iqa for those years had expanded into a large militia of thousands of fighters by 1969: Jadid used it as a counterweight to armed Assad's supporters.
As a result, as-Sa'iqa was unable to help Jadid stay in power. When al-Assad seized power in the November 1970 "Corrective Revolution", as-Sa'iqa was purged and its leaders replaced with al-Assad loyalists (although Jadid loyalists held on to the as-Sai'qa branch active in the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan until mid-1971, when they were arrested). As new Secretary-General (after Mahmud al-Ma'ayta, who had succeeded Yusuf Zuayyin), al-Assad chose Zuheir Mohsen, a Palestinian Ba'thist who had come to Syria as a refugee from Jordan. He was repeatedly promoted by Syria as a candidate for the post of PLO chairman, to replace Arafat, but never gained support from other factions. By some estimates, by 1983, about 70 percent of all as-Sa'iqa militants were Syrians.
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