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Fedayeen (Arabic:فدائيونfidāʻiyyūnArabic pronunciation:[fɪ.daːʔɪj.juːn] "self-sacrificers")[a][1] is anArabic term used to refer to various military groups willing to sacrifice themselves for a larger campaign or leader.
"Fidayun" is the plural of "fidayi" (Arabic:فدائيfidāʻiyyArabic pronunciation:[fɪ.daːʔijj])), meaning "one who redeems/sacrifices themselves".[1][2]
Hassan-i-Sabbah (c. 1050–1124),[3][4] who founded theOrder of Assassins inPersia andSyria, used the term to refer to his fanatical devotees.Fidāʼīyīn is the plural offidāʼī, which means "sacrifice." It is widely understood as "those willing to sacrifice themselves for God".
Fedayi also known as theArmenian irregular units orArmenian militia, wereArmenian civilians who voluntarily left their families to form self-defense units in reaction to the mass murder of Armenians and the pillage of Armenian villages by criminals,Turkish andKurdish gangs, Ottoman forces, andHamidian guards between the 19th and early 20th centuries. Their ultimate goal was to gain Armenian autonomy (Armenakans) or independence (Dashnaks,Hunchaks) depending on their ideology. Some of the key Fedayi figures also participated in theIranian Constitutional Revolution that commenced during the same period, upon agreement of theARF leaders.[5]
At the onset of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenians of Artsakh began forming small detachments of volunteers and often self-described themselves asFedayeen, inheriting the name of the fighters who actively resisted the Ottoman Empire in the final decades of the nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth centuries. The Fedayeen during this period worked against attempts by theMinistry of Internal Affairs (MVD) andOMON units of theAzerbaijan SSR toethnically cleanse the region of Armenians.
The term has also been used to refer to members of the Armenian militant groupASALA.[6][7]
TheCommittee of Union and Progress conducted assassination campaigns and called its assassins "fedai", which originated from "feda," deriving from the first letters of "filiyas elenikis desmos anton" meaning "this is the tie of Greek friendship".[8] However, "feda" also means sacrifice in Turkish, representing the term's evolution which came to represent those who swore allegiance to CUP.[8] Within the context ofTurkish history, the termfedailer is often associated with theLate Ottoman orEarly Republican irregular forces, known as:Kuva-yi Milliye.[9] Those most committedUnionists who would enforce the Central Committee's regime were also known asfedailer.
During the 1940s, groups of Egyptian civilians formedfedayeen groups to contest theBritish occupation of Egypt, which by then was limited to the region against theSuez Canal.British forces had established numerous military outposts around the canal zone, which many Egyptians viewed as a violation of their national sovereignty. This opposition was not supported by theEgyptian government pre-1951, though thesefedayeen groups held broad support among the general public in Egypt.[citation needed]
In 1951, the Egyptian government started supporting the fedyaeen. Attacks "mobs of "irregular self-sacrificers, or fedayeen", some "armed by theMuslim Brotherhood", attacked British military outposts located in the Suez Canal Zone. In the same year, the government started to support the attacks.[10]
Known by the same name, they operated inside the capital city,Asmara, during the last 15–20 years of the armed struggle inEritrea against theEthiopian government. They operated secretly and eliminated people who were considered dangerous to thestruggle to gain Eritrean independence, which lasted from 1961 to 1991.[citation needed]
Two very different groups used the name Fedayeen in recentIranian history. TheFadayan-e Islam has been described as "one of the first realIslamic fundamentalist organizations in theMuslim world". It was founded byNavab Safavi in 1946 for the purpose of demanding strict application of the sharia and assassinating those it believed to beapostates and enemies of Islam.[11] After several successful assassinations it was suppressed in 1956 and several leading members were executed.
AMarxist-leaning activist group known as the Fedayeen (Fedayân in Persian language) was founded in 1971 and based inTehran. Operating between 1971 and 1983, the Fedayeen carried out a number of political assassinations in the course of the struggle against theShah of Iran, after which the group was suppressed.
In 1979 theIranian People's Fedâi Guerrillas split from theOrganization of Iranian People's Fedaian (Majority).
Beginning in 1995,Iraq established aparamilitary group known as theFedayeen Saddam, loyal to theBa'athist Iraqi government ofSaddam Hussein. The name was chosen to imply a connection with the Palestinian Fedayeen.[12] In July 2003, personnel records for the Fedayeen organization in Iraq were discovered in the basement of the former Fedayeen headquarters in eastBaghdad near theRasheed Air Base. At the time of the discovery, theAssyrian Democratic Movement occupied the building; after an extensive cataloging process, an operation was conducted in Baghdad resulting in several individuals being detained.
Palestinian fedayeen are militants of a nationalist orientation from among thePalestinian people. The fedayeen made efforts to infiltrate territory inIsrael in order to strike military[13] as well as civilian[14][15][16][17][18][19][20] targets in the aftermath of the1948 Arab–Israeli War. Some groups of fedayeen find their origin among the refugee camps of the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In these camps the fedayeen would find common cause between each other and the local population, such as in Lebanon. This also enabled them to blend in between the civilians and wage aguerilla war.[21]
Members of these groups were living in theGaza Strip and theWest Bank or in neighboringLebanon andSyria.[22] The presence of these groups in these countries would however draw attention of the Israeli military which used heavy tactics to flush them out. They also did this in order to turn the civilian population against them, this was successful in the case of south Lebanon.[23]
Prior to Israel's seizure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in theSix-Day War, these areas, originally destined for a Palestinian state, were under Jordanian and Egyptian occupation, respectively. After Israel'sOperation Black Arrow in 1955, the Palestinian fedayeen were incorporated into an Egyptian army unit.[22][24][25][26][27][28][29] In the year 1969 theCairo Agreement was signed which sanctioned Lebanon an battlefield. This agreement was important since it sanctioned the use of South-Lebanon as a battlefield. Since the area was now a battlefield thePalestinian fedayeen could now use it as base of operations against the Israeli forces.[30]
During this time (1948 – c. 1980), the word entered international usage and was frequently used in the Arab media as a synonym for great militancy.[citation needed] In the Israeli Hebrew press of this time the term was associated withterrorism.[13] Since the mid-1960s and the rise of more organized and specific militant groups, such as thePalestine Liberation Organization, the word has fallen out of usage, but not in the historical context.
