The security establishment is very concerned about the continued growth of terrorist groups in the northern West Bank. On January 9, a new terrorist group called the Birkin groups appeared openly, announcing that together with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades group, the military arm of the Fatah movement, it carried out several shooting attacks on checkpoints and patrols of IDF.
The new group belongs to the Islamic Jihad organization, which has been leading the terrorist operations in the northern West Bank since the end of the IDF operation in the Gaza Strip in May 2021 and following the escape of 6 terrorists from Gilboa prison to the Jenin area in September 2021, five of whom were from the Islamic Jihad organization.
According to security officials, the person responsible for the establishment of these terrorist groups is Akram Al-Ajouri, the head of the military branch of the Islamic Jihad in coordination with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
The Iranians are the ones who developed the establishment of the new terrorist groups after the establishment of the “Jenin Battalion” group on local initiative.
Who is Akram Al-Ajouri?
On November 13, 2019, Israel attempted to assassinate
Akram Al-Ajouri at his home in Damascus. Al-Ajouri is a member of the political bureau of the Islamic Jihad organization and head of the Supreme Military Council.
He was saved from the Israeli
Air Force attack on his home but his son Moaz was killed.
Al-Ajouri was born in the Gaza Strip, he has 3 sons and held important positions in the organization, in September 2018 he was elected to the position of a member of the political bureau of the organization.
in the internal elections, he came in second place after Ziyad Al-Nakhallah, who was elected the organization’s secretary general. He is also the head of the Shura Council and is responsible for the organization’s funds, which come mainly from Iran.
Last August, together with the secretary general of the organization, Zyiad Al-Nakhallah, he met in Tehran with General Hossein Salami, commander of the Revolutionary Guards, to coordinate the organization’s military activities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The person who helped him establish the new terrorist groups in the West Bank was Sheikh Basam al- Saadi from the refugee camp in Jenin, one of the leaders of the Islamic Jihad organization, he was arrested by the IDF and his arrest was one of the reasons that led to the Israeli military operation against the Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip last summer.
Al-Ajouri moves between Iran, Syria and Lebanon and maintains military ties with senior officials of the Iranian regime and the Hezbollah organization.
Al-Ajouri is considered number two in the organization and the strongest man after Secretary General Ziyad Al-Nakhala and has a great influence in the Gaza Strip.
Following the entry of former Chief of Staff Yoav Galant into the position of Minister of Defense who knows the Jenin area well from his military service, the IDF’s estimation is increasing that there will be no escape from a large military operation against the terrorist groups in the Jenin area and possibly also in the Nablus area.
According to security officials, in the Jenin area there are already several hundred armed terrorists operating in several groups that mainly belong to the Islamic Jihad organizations and the Fatah organization, The IDF’s large arrests operation is not enough to curb the wave of terrorism even though it had successes.
The leading group is the Jenin Battalion, founded by the terrorist Jamil Al-Amouri immediately after the IDF operation in the Gaza Strip in May 2021, he was killed by the IDF in a month afterwards, but after his death, the group grew and received financial and logistical assistance from the military arm of the Islamic Jihad.
The major attack attributed to this group is the shooting attack on the car of the 4 students from the yeshiva in the Homesh settlement in which the late Yehuda Dimantman was killed and two others were wounded.
Akram Al-Ajouri, the commander of the Saraya Al-Quds military wing, told the Al Jazeera channel on January 7 that the group’s original plan was to kill some of the Yeshiva students and take others captive to be used as bargaining chips for a prisoner exchange with Israel.
As things stand, not only is a large operation expected in the Jenin area against the terrorist groups, but also another attempt to assassinate Akram Al-Ajouri as soon as there is an operational opportunity for this, he is now considered the head of the snake that leads the terrorism in the Jenin and Nablus areas.
One of the most difficult problems that Israel’s security forces face is the smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in the West Bank.
The weapons are smuggled mainly
through the border with Jordan and financed by Iran. In 2022, the security forces thwarted several smuggling operations and seized 480 weapons.
