Army of the Holy War
Holy War Army

The situation that the Army of the Holy War and the Palestinian forces were in was worse.

Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni came from Egypt with several hundred men of the Army of the Holy War.

Daoud al-Husayni - Inspector-General of the Army of the Holy War and aide of Amin al-Husayni.

Emil Ghuri, the new leader of the Army of the Holy War, also envisaged taking these districts and mobilized 600 soldiers for the mission, but prepared no specific operation.

Many of Surif's youth joined Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni's Army of the Holy War against the British and later the Haganah during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

He once wrote, in an article for Resistance magazine: "When our people finally awaken and join the army of the Holy War that is raging in our generation, the feeling will dwarf being amongst 500 saluting comrades.

He subsequently became leader of approximately 50,000 Palestinian Arabs who joined the Mufti's Army of the Holy War during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, when his fellow Iraq-veteran and German collaborator Fawzi al-Qawuqji became a rival general.

At the same time, he became an Arab nationalist and began procuring weapons to be smuggled into the former British Mandate of Palestine, for use by irregulars in the Arab Higher Committee and the Army of the Holy War militias.

The Arab League supported the Arab struggle by forming the volunteer based Arab Liberation Army, supporting the Palestinian Arab Army of the Holy War, under the leadership of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and Hasan Salama.

He moved to Surif, a village to the southwest of Jerusalem, with his supporters-around a hundred fighters who were trained in Syria before the war and who served as officers in his army, Jihad al-Muqadas, or Army of the Holy War.

The Army of the Holy War had over 50,000 Palestinian Arabs available for local defense but a force of only 5,000 to 10,000, both foreign fighters from Arab states and Palestinian Arab militiamen, available to be sent where needed during the Israel war of Independence.

The Holy War Army was a force of Palestinian Arab irregulars in the 1947-48 Palestinian civil war.

On 3 October 1948, Jordan gave an order to the Arab Legion to surround, and forcibly disarm, various units of the Holy War Army.

On 2 June, Holy War Army commander Hasan Salama was killed in a battle with Israeli forces at Ras al-Ein, north of Jaffa.

During 1947 Palestinian Civil War, the clan formed the Holy War Army led by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and Hasan Salama.

The commanders of his Holy War Army, Hasan Salama and Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, were allocated only the Lydda district and Jerusalem.

It formally adopted the Flag of the Arab Revolt that had been used by Arab nationalists since 1917, and revived the Holy War Army, with the declared aim of liberating Palestine.

The Haganah charged that the building was used by the Holy War Army of Hasan Salama, Palestinian guerrilla commander of the Jaffa district, and that 39 people were killed in the raid.

He was involved in some high level negotiations between Arab leaders-before and during the War-at a meeting held in Damascus in February 1948, to organize Palestinian Field Commands and the commanders of the Holy War Army.

Abdullah regarded the attempt to revive al-Husayni's Holy War Army as a challenge to his authority and on 3 October his minister of defense ordered all armed bodies operating in the areas controlled by the Arab Legion to be disbanded.

Members of the Arab League - Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Transjordan, the Holy War Army and the Arab Liberation Army, marched their forces into what had the previous day ceased to be the British Mandate for Palestine.

In December, Abd al-Qadir Husseini, who was a protégé of his uncle the Grand Mufti arrived in Jerusalem with one hundred combatants who had trained in Syria and that would form the cadre of the Holy War Army.

In January, in the context of the "War of the Roads", the Holy War Army of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni besieged the Jewish part of the city and stopped convoys passing between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

It fought on the Arab side in the 1948 Palestine war and was set up by the Arab League as a counter to the Arab High Committee's Holy War Army, though in fact the League and Arab governments prevented thousands from joining either force.