Document:Official PA website: Fatah responsible for Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades

Fateh's Revolutionary Council Convenes For the First Time in Three Years
www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_News/news2004/2004_02/104.html

RAMALLAH, Palestine, February 26, 2004 (IPC + Agencies)-- The Revolutionary
Council of the Palestinian Liberation Movement (Fateh) held its first of
three meetings in the 23rd session in Ramallah City on Tuesday, after three
years of the previous session caused by the Israeli occupation of the
Palestinian territories.

The meetings were called by the Secretariat-General of the council, and the
senior figures included the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who is also
the Chairman of the Fateh movement, as well as the Palestinian Prime
Minister Ahamd Qurei' and members of the Executive Committee and the
Revolutionary Council inside and outside the Palestinian territories who
were able to attend.

The meetings were held upon request of the members of the movement to
discuss the reforms inside the movement's ranks, as well as the
justification of the movement's organizational structure and determining one
reference point to it.

Several news reports talked also about discussions to disband the Al Aqsa
Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the movement, as Mr. Jibril Al
Rujoub, national security advisor to President Arafat, pointed out that the
revolutionary council would discuss the possibility of disbanding the
Brigades, but Ahmad Ghonaim, one of Fateh's leaders, said that was highly
unexpected. "The main problem with Fateh is not the resistance activists,
but the disassembly that leads to the absence of responsibility among the
movement's ranks," Ghonaim told reporters.

On his side, the former national security advisor, Mohammed Dahalan, said
before the meeting that Fateh's worst problems is lack of the financial
transparency and opportunities before the younger generation with reformist
tendencies to take up positions of responsibility.

Most of the 130 council members have demand elections, which were impossible
to hold in the shadow of continuous and daily Israeli offensive against the
Palestinian people. The elections in the council are held every five years.

Mr. Hamdan Ashour, the Secretary General of the council, mentioned that 13
members of the Gaza Strip were banned from traveling to Ramallah in the West
Bank by the Israeli occupying forces, after refusing to issue them permits
to cross to the West Bank.

Ashour told media outlets that "the gathering members will discuss a lot of
ideas presented before the council in order to solve the problems of the
movement, which some people see they would not be solved except after
holding the sixth general meeting, which will be seriously discussed during
the council's meetings."

Furthermore, Sakher Habash, a prominent figure in Fateh, expected that the
council would approve forming a preparatory committee of the Fateh
leadership to prepare for the general conference of the movement, to work on
uniting the political, organizational and struggling points of view among
the members of Fateh.

The last general conference of the Fateh movement was held in Tunisia in
1989, where a Central Committee was elected and included 19 members, to
which two additional members; the late Faisal Al Husseini and Dr. Zakariya
Al Agha, were added to raise the total to 21 members.

Five of the Central Committee members died until now, including Salah Khalaf
and Hayel Abdel Hamid, who were assassinated by the Israelis in Tunisia, in
addition to the death of Faisal Al Husseini, Sob'hi Abu Karsh and Khaled Al
Hassan.