Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (, PFLP) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization (the PLO, founded in 1964), the largest being Fatah (founded in 1959). Ahmad Sa'adat has served as General Secretary of the PFLP since 2001. He was sentenced in December 2006 to 30 years in an Israeli prison. The PFLP currently considers both the Fatah-led government in the West Bank and the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip illegal because elections to the Palestinian National Authority have not been held since 2006. , the PFLP boycotts participation in the PLO Executive Committee and the Palestinian National Council. The PFLP has generally taken a hard line on Palestinian national aspirations, opposing the more moderate stance of Fatah. It does not recognise the State of Israel, it opposes negotiations with the Israeli government, and favours a one-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The military wing of the PFLP is called the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades. The PFLP is well known for pioneering armed aircraft-hijackings in the late 1960s and early 1970s. According to PFLP Politburo member and former aircraft-hijacker Leila Khaled, the PFLP does not see suicide bombing as a form of resistance to occupation or as a strategic action or policy and no longer carries out such attacks. The PFLP has been designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and the European Union. From its foundation the PFLP sought superpower patrons, early on developing ties with the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and, at various times, with regional powers such as Syria, South Yemen, Libya, North Korea, and Iraq, as well as with left-wing groups around the world, including the FARC and the Japanese Red Army. When that support diminished or stopped, in the late 1980s and 1990s, the PFLP sought new allies and developed contacts with Islamist groups linked to Iran, despite the PFLP's strong adherence to secularism and anti-clericalism. The relationship between the PFLP and the Islamic Republic of Iran has fluctuatedit strengthened as a result of Hamas moving away from Iran due to differing positions on the Syrian Civil War. Iran rewarded the PFLP for its pro-Assad stance with an increase in financial and military assistance.