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Profile: Islamic Jihad Gaining New Members
Morning Edition: January 22, 2003
Key Palestinian Groups to Discuss Cease-Fire Plan
BOB EDWARDS, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Bob Edwards.
Two key Palestinian groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have agreed to participate in talks in Cairo on stopping attacks against Israelis. They had threatened to boycott. Islamic Jihad is one of the most radical of the Palestinian groups fighting Israel's occupation of the West Bank. The group claims responsibility for some of the bloodiest attacks on Israelis during the 27 months of the intifada. NPR's Linda Gradstein reports from the West Bank city of Nablus.
LINDA GRADSTEIN reporting:
In an unheated university classroom in Nablus, two young men wearing clean, well-pressed jeans say they hope to become suicide bombers one day. Both are 18 years old, with just the beginning of moustaches on their upper lips. They won't give their real names, using nicknames instead. Abumat Tesum(ph) says he joined Islamic Jihad two months ago, just after three Islamic Jihad gunmen killed 12 Israeli soldiers and Jewish settler security officers in the West Bank city of Hebron. Israeli military officials say the ambush was meticulously planned and executed.
The other new Islamic Jihad recruit, Abu Samed(ph), says the attack made him proud.
ABU SAMED (Islamic Jihad Recruit): (Through Translator) Hebron attack confirms that Islamic Jihad is very strong, and it changed the feeling that the Israeli army is superior army, and we could get victory over this army by ourself.
GRADSTEIN: Abu Samed says he gained new respect among his peers when he joined Islamic Jihad, and he says he recruited eight of his friends to join as well. Their commander, a soft-spoken 25-year-old, says Islamic Jihad has more recruits than it can absorb and has had to turn people away. He says new recruits are carefully screened to make sure they are truly committed to Islam and to the Palestinian cause. Abu Samed says Israel's recent assassinations of Islamic Jihad leaders only strengthened the movement.
ABU SAMED: (Through Translator) Every Israeli army assassination attack against Islamic Jihad leaders, that's giving a motive to be recruited. Two or three come to join the Islamic Jihad to take revenge and to teach that Judaism lesson that the blood of the Islamic Jihad is not cheaper than their blood.
GRADSTEIN: Israeli security authorities say Islamic Jihad is harder for Israel to fight than other organizations such as Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Yoni Fighel of the Israeli Institute for Counterterrorism was a former military governor of the northern West Bank.
Mr. YONI FIGHEL (Israeli Institute for Counterterrorism): They're a very small organization, very secret one, and this can give them the freedom of movement, of hiding and operating, whereas a larger organization, of course, leaks can go out and they are more exposed to the operational intelligence measures by Israel.
GRADSTEIN: Fighel estimates the Islamic Jihad has several hundred members, including about a hundred fighters. He says it is well-funded by Iran, and has even been giving weapons to other organizations, such as the Al Aqsa Brigades. Members of both Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa say there is close cooperation between the two groups. They also say that dozens of fighters are leaving Al Aqsa, which has been facing financial difficulties, and joining Islamic Jihad.
Palestinian political science professor Ali Jarbawi blames Israel for the growing strength of Islamic Jihad.
Mr. ALI JARBAWI (Palestinian Political Science Professor): We are being humiliated on checkpoints every single day, and people are not moving from one place to another. The economic situation is extremely bad. The level of unemployment is worsening, so you can put all these factors together and you can find out that the level of frustration among Palestinians is rising, so you can draw the conclusion.
GRADSTEIN: Back at the university in Nablus, the new Islamic Jihad recruits say their parents worry they could be targeted by Israel, but they say they are willing to pay any price to defend their land against what they call the Zionist enemy. Linda Gradstein, NPR News, Nablus.
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