Al Dawa #CR0000994 (Also... Some alternate names are aliases, other are names for specific subgroups or cells). The Hizb al Dawa al Islamiyya Islamic Call Party Black Brigades Islamic Liberation Movement of Iraq Dawa Source: CIA, MI-6, EuroTer, Interpol Type: Political terrorist organization. Scope: Active terrorist organization, carrying out attacks against Iraqi targets, and it's supporters throughout the Middle East. Affiliations: Links to the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq [#CR0003816], and Dawa members are believed to have received training and support from the Worldwide Islamic Jihad [#CR0001716], Hizbullah [#CR0001132], as well as the Irish Republican Army [#CR0000632]. [Interpol] Personnel: 2000 (believed) [CIA] Operating Since: 1968 Structure: Affiliation of terrorist cells, assembled along a Shiite religious hierarchy. Cells usually consist of eight to ten members following a Shiite advisor. Leaders: Muhsin al Hakim [#LL4923485], founder of al Dawa, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al Sadr [#LL5008542], assassinated 1980. Legitimate Connections: Unknown, but believed to front a number of relief organizations, as well as receiving money worldwide from partisan Shiite churches. [EuroTer] Also believed to be accepting funds from legitimate resistance groups.[MI-6] Resources: Smallarms, explosives and military equipment of varying quality. Solid funding, high level of training and excellent intelligence and support. Suspected Criminal Activity: Dawa activists joined with other anti-Bathist guerrilla fighters and, with Iranian material and moral support, undertook attacks on police stations and Bathist party offices. On 1 April 1980, Dawa members aided by Iranian revolutionaries attempted to assassinate Tariq Aziz, deputy premier of Iraq and close associate of Saddam Hussein. At least three of those involved in the 12 December 1983 truck bombing attempts against the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait were Dawa members who claimed also to be Islamic Jihad [#CR0001716] members. On 25 May 1985, a Dawa member attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait in a suicidal car bomb attack. The seizing of the U.S. hostages in Lebanon began in earnest after the conviction of the 17 perpetrators of the Kuwait City truck bombing attempts. The hijackers of TWA flight 847 on 14 June 1985 and of Kuwait Airlines flight 422 on 5 April 1988 also included release of the convicted truck bombers among their demands. During the 2 August 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, prison authorities there released the remaining 15 convicted bombers, 2 having completed their terms earlier. These and other Dawa members participated in the partisan resistance against the Iraqi occupiers of Kuwait. Later Dawa members aided by Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards (q.v.) attacked Iraqi troops in Basra during the later stages of the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Additional Commentary: The Hizb al Dawa al Islamiyya, or Islamic Call [to faith) Party, is a Shiite Muslim fundamentalist party founded in Iraq by radical junior Shiite clergymen that seeks to overthrow the secular Bathist regime in Iraq in order to create an Iranian-style Islamic Republic. Iraq's population is nearly 60 percent Shiite while the governing Bathist party is predominantly Sunnite. On the other hand, most of the Shiite religious leaders in Iraq come from families that either originated in Iran or else have intermarried with Iranian clerical families, thus undercutting the nationalistic credentials of potential Shiite leaders. While this party is one of the oldest radical Shiite political parties, having been founded in 1968-1969 at the latest, it has had to accept Iranian state sponsorship after having been virtually eradicated within Iraq by severe state repression. Beginning in 1974 the Iraqi regime responded to Shiite unrest in the shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf by executing five Dawa leaders and eight others in 1977 when riots broke out again. Following the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, the Iraqi regime put the pro-Khomeini Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al Sadr under house arrest in order to deprive Iraqi Shiite fundamentalists the rallying point of a charismatic leader. Shortly after the holding of an Islamic Liberation Movements conference in Tehran in early 1980, an "Islamic Liberation Movement of Iraq" proclaimed its existence in Europe and named the confined Ayatollah Baqir al Sadr as its leader. Dawa activists joined with other anti- Bathist guerrilla fighters and, with Iranian material and moral support, undertook attacks on police stations and Bathist party offices. Reprisals included making Dawa membership a capital offense, the expulsion of over 15,000 Shiites suspected of pro- Dawa sympathies, and the summary execution of Ayatollah Baqir al Sadr and his sister sometime during the week following the assassination attempt. In what amounted to a declaration of war, Ayatollah Khomeini responded to the news of al Sadr's execution by issuing a decree of takfir [anathema] on 18 April 1980, against Saddam Hussein and the Bathist regime of Iraq and calling on the Iraqi Armed Forces to overthrow their Bathist rulers. By the end of 1980 over 500 Dawa members were summarily executed in Iraq, although assassinations of government officials and sabotage against the Iraqi military continued even after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in September 1980. Members of the al Dawa group have joined Hezbollah [#CR0001132] in Lebanon and formed cells in other Arab lands, particularly Kuwait, where they have received arms and explosives through Iranian diplomatic offices. The spiritual leader of Hezbollah, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah, was a former member of a Lebanese branch of the al Dawa party. Dawa members participated in the partisan resistance against the Iraqi occupiers of Kuwait. Later Dawa members aided by Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards (q.v.) attacked Iraqi troops in Basra during the later stages of the 1991 Persian Gulf war. In Iran former Dawa party members appeared to form the nucleus of the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), an umbrella group of Iraqi Shiite dissident groups formed under Iranian auspices in early July 1982 as a government-in-exile of a future Islamic republic in Iraq. SAIRI is headed by Hujjatulislam Baqir al Hakim, son of Muhsin al Hakim, a native Iraqi religious leader claimed by Dawa members as the founder of their party. SAIRI used to form contingents of anti-Saddam Iraqi émigrés to fight alongside Iranian troops in the Iran-Iraq war and also collaborated with antiregime Kurds in the northern war fronts within Iraqi territory. Although SAIRI attempted to unify the Dawa and other Iraqi Shiite groups under its standard, the main body of the Dawa party remained aloof and maintained its own separate organization.
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