Sheikh Abdullah Ramadan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sheikh Abdullah Ramadan Shallah aka Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah (Arabic: رمضان عبد الله شلح; born January 1, 1958) in Sajaya, Gaza Strip has Palestinian citizenship and is one of the founders and currently (since 1995) the Secretary-General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, deemed by the United States federal government to be a designated international terrorist organization.
Shallah was listed as a "Specially Designated Terrorist" under United States law on November 27, 1995. A decade later, Shallah was among the second and most recent group of indicted fugitives to be added to the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list on February 24, 2006, along with fellow PIJ member Abd Al Aziz Awda. [1]
Shallah is a large man, at 6'1" and 225 pounds. He currently resides in Damascus, Syria along with most other leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, including Khaled Mashal.
Contents |
[edit] Sajaya, Gaza City, birthplace
In 1958, Shallah was born in Sajaya, also called Gaza Sejaiya district, a neighborhood in northern Gaza City, on the northern end of the Gaza Strip.
Four decades later, during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which began in September 2000, the same northern Gaza City neighborhood became the source of many Kassam rocket attacks launched toward Israel. Israel blamed Palestinian Islamic Jihad for the majority of those rocket attacks up through early 2006. On Monday March 6, 2006 the same neighborhood became the site of an IAF missile strike that killed a reputed senior Islamic Jihad commander, 30 year-old Munir Abu Suker, aka Muneir Suqar, after three rockets had been fired from Sajaya into Israel since the prior day. Suker was killed while riding in a car together with another Islamic Jihad member, Iyad Abu Shaouf, aka Ashraf Shalouf. [2] [3]
[edit] Gaza Strip history
Until the 2005 Israeli pullout, The Gaza Strip, a narrow area of land along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, north of Egypt, was commonly referred to by modern Arab Palestinians as part of the "Israeli-occupied territories." Israel argues that it is more accurate to refer to the territories as "disputed territories."
As a Gaza native, Ramadan Shallah currently has Palestinian citizenship, in the Palestinian territories, under the Palestinian Authority. But his citizenship as a Palestinian is a modern designation after Israel's capture of the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Six-day War, when the term "Palestinian" first started to be used exclusively in respect to the Arab population of Palestine.
The Gaza Strip was historically part of the post-World War I British Mandate of Palestine. The 1947 UN Partition Plan in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 was to give the area of the Gaza Strip, demographically already 98% Arab population, to the resulting new Arab state. The failure of this plan led to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the Palestinian exodus of many of the Arab Palestinian people from modern Israel.
After the war, Egypt controlled this narrow strip of land north of its border, along the sea. That boundary was confirmed by the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and Egypt, and the narrow land then became known as the Gaza Strip.
From 1949 until 1967, the Gaza population was then living under the occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt. Shallah was born into the middle of that occupation, in 1958. Egypt, since 1949, had recognized an "All-Palestine Government." But in 1959, a year after Shallah's birth, the president of Egypt, Gamal Abdul Nasser, annulled the All-Palestine government by decree.
In 1967, Shallah turned nine years old, war broke out with Israel, and his homeland in the Gaza Strip changed hands, this time over to Israel, and a new era had begun.
[edit] University career
Shallah earned a PhD in Banking and Economics from the University of Durham in England. In the past, he has worked as a university professor in several countries and has ties to Tampa, Florida, the Gaza Strip, Egypt and London, England.
[edit] Palestinian Islamic Jihad activity
Considered a terrorist by some and a freedom fighter by others, Shallah took control as secretary-general of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) after the assassination of the former leader, Fathi Shiqaqi in Malta in 1995. Shallah was listed as a "Specially Designated Terrorist" under United States law on November 27, 1995.
Along with fellow PIJ member Abd Al Aziz Awda, Shallah was indicted in a 53 count indictment in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa, Florida, on RICO charges of alleged involvement in racketeering activities for the designated international terrorist organization known as Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Shallah is wanted for conspiracy to conduct the affairs of the PIJ through a pattern of racketeering activities such as bombings, murders, extortions, and money laundering.
For that indictment, Shallah then became one of six alleged and indicted terrorist fugitves among the second and most recent group of indicted fugitives to be added to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation's Most Wanted Terrorists list on February 24, 2006, along with Abd Al Aziz Awda.
[edit] References
- ^ FBI Updates Most Wanted Terrorists and Seeking Information – War on Terrorism Lists, FBI national Press Release, February 24, 2006
- ^ blog archive of Senior Islamic Jihad operative in Gaza killed in IAF airstrike, at jpost.com
- ^ Senior Islamic Jihad operative in Gaza killed in IAF airstrike 2006-03-06
