Ahmed Jibril

Ahmed Jibril
Born	Ahmed Jibril 1938 (age 78–79) Yazur, Mandatory Palestine
Nationality	Palestinian
Children	Jihad Ahmed Jibril

Ahmed Jibril (Arabic: أحمد جبريل‎‎; born c. 1938) is the founder and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC).

During the Syrian Civil War, Jibril was a notable supporter of the Assad government and PFLP-GC members helped government forces to fight the Syrian opposition. However, after clashes with rebels in Yarmouk Camp in Damascus, the PFLP-GC suffered defections and was forced to withdraw from the camp, and Jibril fled the city.

Jibril was born in Yazur a town near Jaffa in Mandatory Palestine, in 1938. His family moved to Syria, where he was raised, and where he served in the army from 1956 until 1958, rising to the rank of captain before being expelled as a suspected Communist. He founded the Palestinian Liberation Front in 1959, then joined George Habash to found the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1967, an armed movement that combined Arab nationalism with leftist ideology.

In 1968 Jibril broke away from the PFLP because of disputes over the more revolutionary Marxism advocated by Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh. He formed a new organization, the pro-Syrian PFLP-General Command.

Jibril never wavered from his belief that Palestine could only be liberated through military attrition. He joined Habash and other splinter groups which opposed negotiations with the Israeli government. He launched a variety of inventive attacks, including the "Night of the Gliders" on 25 November 1987.

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