The PAF has its roots in the Arab Liberation Front (ALF). This group had been created in 1968 by the Iraqi-based Ba'ath Party as its wing inside the Palestinian Fedayeen movement, and to serve as a counter-weight to the rivalling Syrian-based Ba'athist faction, al-Sa'iqa, within the PLO and Palestinian politics. The PAF itself was founded in 1993, after a split in the ALF. The split had been provoked by the decision of the ALF to freeze its PLO membership in protest of the Oslo Accords, as per Iraqi policy. The organization held its first conference inside Palestine on May 15-May 17, 1997, and eventually drifted closer to Fatah and the Palestinian National Authority, while the ALF remained staunchly loyal to Baghdad. The PAF, a very minor faction within PNA politics, has verbally supported the al-Aqsa Intifada, but it is unclear whether it performed any actual military activity.