Arab Liberation Front Arab Liberation Front Arab Liberation Front ( "Jabhet Al-Tahrir Al-'Arabiyah") is a minor Palestinian political party, previously controlled by the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party, formed in 1969 by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and then headed by Saddam Hussein. ALF is a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The ALF was founded in April 1969, as a front of the Iraqi-led faction of the Ba'ath Party, then led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. The ALF has always followed Iraqi government policy on all matters. In line with the pan-Arab ideology of the Ba'ath Party, the ALF was initially opposed to "Palestinization" of the
Saddam Hussein the Arab world. John Esposito, however, claims that "Arabs and Muslims were pulled in two directions. That they rallied not so much to Saddam Hussein as to the bipolar nature of the confrontation (the West versus the Arab Muslim world) and the issues that Saddam proclaimed: Arab unity, self-sufficiency, and social justice." As a result, Saddam Hussein appealed to many people for the same reasons that attracted more and more followers to Islamic revivalism and also for the same reasons that fueled anti-Western feelings. As one U.S. Muslim observer noted: "People forgot about Saddam's record and concentrated on America ...