Said al-Muragha

Col. Sa'eed Musa al-Muragha ( _ar. سعيد مُراغة or سعيد موسى)(b. 1927) is a Palestinian militant better known as Abu Musa.

Early years

A Palestinian refugee, Abu Musa served in the Jordanian Army, an artillery specialist. He was sent to receive a military education at the prestigious British Sandhurst Military Academy. He was involved in a coup attempt in Jordan in 1970, and joined Fatah the same year. After the Black September fighting, he relocated with most of the Palestinian Resistance to Lebanon. There he became known as a skilled commander of the forces in south Lebanon, and was promoted to deputy military head of the PLO's military presence in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War. In that capacity he led Palestinian forces against the Christian Maronite village Damour, where a massacre was enacted. Between 1980-83, he was a member of Fatah's ruling body, the Revolutionary Council. In 1978 the Syrian government, then in conflict with the PLO, is believed to have tried to assassinate him.

Conflict with Arafat

Still, he gravitated increasingly into conflict with Yassir Arafat, head of Fatah and PLO. Abu Musa was a member of Fatah's leftist opposition, known to advocate the view that the Palestinians and the Lebanese National Movement were in fact fighting a class war against the Lebanese bourgeoisie, rather than participating in a sectarian conflict. He was also known for hardline views on Israel, and outspoken in his opposition to what he saw as Arafat's attempt to reach a negotiated solution to the conflict (see Rejectionist Front). He also complained over corrupt practices within the PLO, especially the promotion of political appointees loyal to Arafat to important military posts.

After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 he was vocal in his criticism of the leadership, accusing Arafat in particular for the breakdown of the PLO's defenses, and in May 1983 he started criticising Arafat publicly. This led to a widening rift within the organization, as anti-Arafat, leftist and hardliner elements of Fatah rallied to Abu Musa, who was simultaneously being courted by Hafez al-Assad of Syria. Mediation attempts by the "loyal opposition" to Arafat, such as the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), failed.

Fatah Uprising

In October 1983, full-scale fighting broke out, and Abu Musa's organization - dubbed Fatah Uprising (or Fatah al-Intifada in Arabic) - received massive backing from Syria, in the form of supplies and ammunition, but also direct military assistance from the Syrian Army, the Syrian brigades of the Palestinian Liberation Army, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) and as-Sa'iqa.

The rebel forces eventually succeeded with heavy Syrian backing to push the Arafatist Fatah and PLO out of Lebanon, after years of fighting, but the price was total loss of independence. Fatah Uprising became in effect a Syrian puppet organization similar to as-Sa'iqa, and has since had very limited or no importance for the Palestinian movement. It remains as a minor faction operating in the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and, until recently, Lebanon. Even if it deplored the Oslo Agreement and has supported the First and Second Intifada, it has no known presence in the Palestinian Occupied Territories at all. Abu Musa retreated from his leadership role in the 1990s, and is today believed to reside in Damascus.