Amal Movement
Amal (Arabic: "Hope," also the acronym of Afwaj al
Muqawama al Lubnaniya,
"Lebanese Resistance Detachments") is a political and
paramilitary organization
representing the Shi_a of Lebanon. Although a nonstate
actor, Amal has a political
infrastructure and has gained territorial control over
large areas of West Beirut and
southern Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. After the
1978-1979 revolution in
Iran, Amal enjoyed some support from the Iranian
revolutionary government. After
1982, however, Iran began to form the rival Hezbollah
militia (q.v.) under its
sponsorship and Amal turned to Syrian sponsorship instead.
Since Amal seeks to change the terms of power in Lebanon
in favor of the Shi_a
by setting aside the 1946 "national covenant" between
Lebanon's Christians and
Sunnite Muslims it may be considered a revolutionary
actor. Yet it has neither
sought to exclude other confessional groups from
participation in Lebanese politics
nor has it sought to create a full-scale Islamic state in
Lebanon after the Iranian
model. For these very reasons more militant Amal members
deserted Amal for the
splinter group Islamic Amal (q.v.). Most of these
defectors were absorbed later into
Hezbollah, a Shi_ite militia created under Iranian
sponsorship that seeks to
establish an exclusively Islamic state in Lebanon.
While Amal is indigenous to Lebanon it was founded by an
Iranian clergyman,
Musa Sadr, who arrived in Lebanon in 1957 and established
the "Movement of the
Deprived" in 1974 to help the Lebanese Shi_a gain
political power. With the
outbreak of civil war in 1975 Musa Sadr authorized the
creation of a military branch,
which properly was the organization called "Amal." The
Israeli invasion of southern
Lebanon in 1978 and continual Palestinian-Israeli clashes
in the largely Shi_i south
of Lebanon increased the Shi_a's acceptance of Amal as
representing and
protecting their community. The subsequent victory of an
Islamic revolution in Shi_i
Iran also bolstered the confidence of Lebanon's Shi_a and
their support for Amal.
Amal's relationship with Iran's revolutionary government
was initially friendly but
deteriorated rapidly. With the disappearance of Imam Musa
Sadr during a visit to
Libya in August 1978, Amal's leadership had passed into
the hands of more secular
nationalistic Shi_i politicians who had less sympathy for
the ideal of creating a
theocratic Islamic state in Lebanon. Also due to the
enmity that had grown between
the Lebanese Shi_a and Palestinian guerrillas operating in
the south of Lebanon,
Amal, in effect, welcomed the 1982 Israeli invasion in the
naive hope that Israeli
forces would shortly leave and return the south of Lebanon
to Shi_i control. Iran's
diplomatic overtures to Libya also antagonized Amal
members who believed that
the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was responsible for Imam
Musa Sadr's
disappearance. The falling out between the Iranian
government and Amal as well as
the defection from Amal of more militant fundamentalists
led Iran to sponsor the
creation of the Hezbollah militia, which absorbed much of
the strength of Amal's
following.
Amal's notoriety as a terrorist group stems largely from a
mistaken association
between it and the rival Hezbollah which carried out a
highly visible campaign of
vehicle bombings, assassinations and hostage takings
against U.S. and other
western targets in Lebanon. By late 1988 Amal had carried
out 18 notable terrorist
actions affecting non-Lebanese nationals, including a
major bombing, a hijacking,
and six kidnappings. From the founding of Hezbollah in
1982 until late 1988 that
group, acting sometimes under its nom de guerre "Islamic
Jihad," had carried out
137 noteworthy terrorist acts, including 38 bombings, 26
kidnappings, 4 hijackings,
7 assassinations, and 6 rocket attacks. Amal's role in
assuming custody of the
hostages taken in the hijacking of TWA flight 847 in 1985
likewise was secondary
to that of Hezbollah in planning and carrying out the
original hijacking. Following the
TWA 874 incident, open warfare erupted between Hezbollah
and Amal. Amal has
since then accepted Syria as its main foreign sponsor in
place of Iran and has
acted more like one Lebanese communal militia among many
than as a
Pan-Islamic revolutionary vanguard.
Email: yona@netvision.net.il
