The Brigades of the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa are the armed wing of the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the Palestinian territories (the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem). It was named after Mustafa Ali Zabri, better known by his kunya Abu Ali Mustafa.

Personnel

History

Originally named the Red Eagle Brigade, they were renamed in 2001 after Abu Ali Mustafa, PFLP's leader, who was killed by Israel in August 2001. They were active with attacks on both military and civilian Israeli targets during the al-Aqsa Intifada. On 16 July 2007, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas requested that all Palestinian resistance groups relinquish their weapons to the Palestinian Authority. Although several members of Fatah's armed wing Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades complied, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades rejected this, stating that they will not cease their resistance until the Israelis withdraw from all parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades fought in the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis.

Attacks carried out by the Brigades

The PFLP's Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades has carried out attacks on both civilians and military targets during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Some of these attacks are:

Capabilities

According to the CIA World Factbook, the exact strength of the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades is unknown, but in the thousands. Its known weaponry includes small arms, light machine guns, rocket artillery, mortars, man-portable surface-to-air missiles, improvised weapons, and explosives, including IEDs, and suicide vests. The Brigades also produces its own weaponry alongside smuggling and importing it. These include IEDs, mortars, RPGs, and rockets, alongside others. The Samoud-1 (literally "resilience") is a relatively short range (8–12 km) rocket domestically produced by Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades in the Gaza Strip. RPGs used include domestically produced Yasin RPGs, whether these were solely given to the PFLP by Hamas, or if the PFLP can also produce Yasin RPGs is unclear. The Sariya-1 240mm Mortar is also produced locally by the PFLP, alongside the mortar ammunition. The military doctrine and tactics of the Abu Ali Mustafa brigades preference mortars heavily, even more so than other armed groups. The brigades regularly publishes videos of them bombarding Israeli positions with mortars. In an interview given to the Los Angeles Times Abu Jamal, the spokesman of the brigades made the following statement:

Foreign support

The PFLP, and by extension the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, receive military and financial support by Iran. This relationship probably began around 2013, and although the actual extent of this support is unclear, the PFLP and Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades have repeatedly declared themselves allies of Iran, Syria and the Axis of Resistance.