Creation of the Abdullah Azzam Battalions

The group is named after Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian who was a major recruiter of ”mujahedin” for the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s and who helped formulate modern Salafi-jihadi theology.

However, the modern faction has no direct links to Azzam, who died in 1989. It was apparently created after the US invasion of Iraq, by activists linked to global jihadi causes and al-Qaeda. The name was first used to claim responsibility for a string of attacks against tourists in Egypt in 2004-2005. However, the Egyptian network shriveled quickly under government repression, leaving a related group of fighters to pick up the mantle in Lebanon.

This faction had its roots among foreign fighters in the Iraq war and many were linked to Abu Moussaab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda network (which is today, after several transmutations, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham). Saleh al-Qaraawi, a Saudi Iraq veteran born in Bureida, emerged as their leader. After being horribly mutilated in an explosion in 2012, he was succeeded by Majid al-Majid, another veteran Saudi jihadi.

With most of its cadre allegedly holed up in the large and lawless Ein al-Hilwe camp in southern Lebanon, this reorganized version of the Abdullah Azzam Battalions began claiming responsibility for occasional rocket fire against northern Israel from 2009 onwards. But despite issuing a constant stream of threats, false claims of responsibility, and statements hinting at a vast global network of fighters, very few more advanced attacks took place and the group could show little activity outside Lebanon.

Limited Activity So Far

Eventually, the Abdullah Azzam Battalions came to be seen as just one of a host of small and squabbling jihadi factions in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, none of which managed to grow into a potent force. In the words of Lucas Winter, “[t]he group’s attacks since 2005 have been small-scale and of minimal impact yet its claims of responsibility have been grandiose.”

Not even the Syrian civil war seemed able to breathe life into the Abdullah Azzam Battalions. The group has issued a number of statements calling for jihad against Bashar al-Assad, Alawites, Shia Muslims, and so on, but so far it has demonstrated precious little activity on the ground in Syria. Even on some jihadi forums, the Abdullah Azzam Battalions have been disparaged as all talk and no action.

The attack on the Iranian embassy may have changed that, bringing a Syria-style bombing to the heart of Lebanon. If Zureiqat’s claims of responsibility hold up—and he has promised that a more detailed statement is on the way—the Abdullah Azzam Battalions have now proved that they can be a serious threat to security in Lebanon and that they will do their utmost to fan the flames of political and sectarian strife.