SAʿIQA, AL-

pan-arabist palestinian guerrilla organization.

The Organization of the Vanguards of the Popular Liberation War—Forces of the Thunderbolt or al-Saʿiqa (Thunderbolt) was founded by pro-Syrian Palestinian Baʿthists in 1968, following a 1966 Baʿth Party resolution to create a Palestinian chapter. (The rival, pro-Iraqi Baʿthists later established the Arab Liberation Front.) Saʿiqa joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in February 1969, but relations with the PLO mainstream deteriorated after Syria's 1976 intervention in Lebanon, with Saʿiqa openly involved in Syrian attacks on the PLO. Saʿiqa was one of two factions that rebelled against Yasir Arafat in 1983, and it has since boycotted all PLO institutions in favor of a series of Syrian-sponsored anti-Arafat alliances (the National Alliance in 1984, the Palestinian National Salvation Front in 1985, and subsequently the Group of Ten).

A number of Saʿiqa's founders, including its first secretary-general, Dafi Jumani, were ousted in 1970 by the new Syrian regime of Hafiz al-Asad after Saʿiqa backed the losing side in a struggle for power within Syria. At Syrian insistence, Jumani was replaced by Mahmud Muʿayita and, in 1971, by Zuhayr Muhsin. Muhsin was assassinated in 1979 under circumstances that remain unclear, and was succeeded by Isam al-Qadi. The organization's publications include the weekly al-Tali (The Vanguards), first published in 1969, and an internal bulletin, al-Saʿiqa.

Throughout its existence, Saʿiqa has received political, military, and financial support from Syria, whose Palestinian refugee camps and whose own military provide most of the group's recruits. Saʿiqa's policies have been either dictated by Damascus or calculated to serve Syrian interests within the Palestinian movement. Syrian patronage once made Saʿiqa the second largest constituent member of the PLO, giving it a generous quota of seats in the Palestine National Council and the PLO Executive Committee. However, its presence in the Palestinian territories and other areas beyond Syrian control has been weak, and its role as a Syrian instrument is widely resented there. Saʿiqa contributions to the 1973 Arab-Israel War were confined to a supporting role in the Syrian Golan. Its support of Syria's intervention in Lebanon in 1976 led to mass defections and its total elimination from areas under PLO control. Saʿiqa's absence during the 1982 siege of Beirut and its open collusion with Syria in the latter's efforts to impose its hegemony over the PLO and Lebanon during the 1980s have strained its credibility further. In January 2003 an attempt at bringing Saʿiqa into the Cairo reconciliation process between the PLO and Palestinian opposition groups failed, despite insistence on their inclusion by HAMAS and Islamic Jihad.

Syria has also operated a distinct "Saʿiqa" force, which was particularly active in the 1970s and early 1980s in targeting U.S., Israeli, Jordanian, and Egyptian embassies, Jewish institutions, and other civilian groups around the region and across Europe.

see also muhsin, zuhayr; palestine liberation organization (plo); syria.

Bibliography

Cobban, Helena. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power, and Politics. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Gresh, Alain. The PLO—the Struggle Within: Towards an Independent Palestinian State, revised edition, translated by A. M. Berrett. London: Zed Books, 1988.

mouin rabbani
updated by george r. wilkes