Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
Arafat's involvement with the Brigades is controversial: while al-Aqsa Brigades stated their affiliation to him and the Fatah movement, the Brigades also claimed a relative independence. As a member of the AMB stated in an interview:“Fatah frames us, but nevertheless a certain independence exists concerning the decisions to take.”Nonetheless, it is known that Arafat during the negotiations used to encourage attacks as a leverage on the Western countries. The BBC discovered in 2003 that the PA was consistently supporting al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades with numbers such as 50,000 US dollars monthly to the group.