Mahmoud Abbas' "moderate" Fatah has terror ties with Iran as well

From AFP:

An Israeli strike in the southern coastal city of Sidon killed a Fatah official on Wednesday, a senior member of the Palestinian group and a security source said.

It marked the first such reported attack on Fatah, the movement led by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah.

"The Israeli strike in Sidon killed (Fatah) group official Khalil Maqdah," said Fathi Abu al-Aradat, a senior member of the group that rivals Gaza's Palestinian Islamist rulers Hamas.

A Lebanese security source confirmed the report to AFP, saying the strike hit his car.

So did Israel escalate things by attacking a "Fatah official"? 

As you read on, you see that things are a little different than the first paragraphs from the wire service  indicate. 

Mounir Maqdah, who heads the Lebanese branch of Fatah's armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, told broadcaster Al-Mayadeen that his brother Khalil had been killed.

He told the channel his brother had been a commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and vowed the group "will respond inside of Israel."

L'Orient Today adds:

The Israeli army confirmed on Wednesday that it carried out an "airstrike" targeting Maqdah. It accused Maqdah and his brother Mounir of "acting on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard," and of being "involved in organizing terrorist attacks" and "weapons trafficking" to the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli army website previously reported that numerous modern weapons were confiscated during the operation conducted by Israeli General Security to thwart Maqdah’s actions. Additionally, the army suspected that the Fatah leader had been recruiting West Bank residents to engage in "terrorist" operations against Israel. 

Mounir has publicly said many times that he supports al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Palestine financially and militarily, according to our correspondent in the South. The brothers have both provided the fighters in the West Bank with money and weapons, he added.

We have two brothers, both Fatah "officials," who are terrorists providing money and weapons to other, presumably Fatah, terrorists in the West Bank.

The logistics of doing that from Lebanon also indicates an Iranian role in this. The Al Aqsa Brigades is relatively small and getting weapons to the West Bank almost certainly involves smuggling through Jordan, which is not a simple thing.

This December analysis from West Point says this directly:

One part of Fatah that Iran has tried to create splinter groups from is the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (Kata’ib Shuhada al-Aqsa), an Islamist military formation formed in 2000 by members of Fatah. Ostensibly, the group is still to this day a Fatah-controlled entity. Working to suck in splinters from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade made sense for Tehran. Support for Palestinian Islamist groups, namely PIJ and Hamas, has long been a hallmark of Iranian policy. Ali Khamenei, the current Supreme Leader, has noted that “the foundations of this resistance rest on Palestinian jihad groups and all faithful and steadfast Palestinians living inside and outside Palestine.”

But could it be that the Al Aqsa Brigades are not really still connected to Fatah? That's been the narrative, that Fatah has cut ties with them (even as they allow them to march in the West Bank with weapons.)

Let's go back to what else AFP had to say about Khalil Maqdah:

The victim, Khalil, is also a member of Fatah's Palestinian National Security and is in charge of Fatah's retiree affairs.

Khalil Maqdah was not only well known as a leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades militia but he also had a day job working for Fatah.

There is no denying it: Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction is a terrorist group, and it gets support from Iran. Abbas is responsible for their terrorism. 

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