Who is he?:
The exiled political leader of Hamas. He currently directs operations out of Damascus, Syria, and has been the highest-ranking members of Hamas since the 2004 death of Abdel Aziz Rantisi.
Birthdate:
Born 1956 in a neighborhood of Ramallah (currently the West Bank). Raised and educated in Kuwait; lived there until the first Gulf War.
Personal life:
Married (1981) with seven children (four boys, three girls). Has a degree from Kuwait University and is a physics teacher by trade. Survived an assassination attempt by poisoning in 1997 in Amman, Jordan. (King Hussein, citing a 1994 peace treaty with Israel, forced their government to hand over the antidote. After recovering, Jordan expelled Mashal and he went to Qatar, then Syria.)
Political affiliation:
Hamas. While a student at Kuwait University, Mashal campaigned against Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization on campus. While making some cooperative overtures toward Fatah, Hamas and Fatah remain bitterly divided on political and operational issues.
Career:
Mashal became one of the founders of Hamas in Jordan after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. He became chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau in 1996, and was a vociferous critic of Yasser Arafat before his 2004 death. Mashal viewed Hamas' 2006 parliamentary victories as a mandate, and has spoken of unifying the Palestinian territories' myriad militias. The subsequent breakdown in the power-sharing agreement between Hamas and Fatah, with Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip and Fatah in control of the West Bank, has put the focus again on factional strife.
Future:
Mashal has vowed that Hamas will not disarm, leaving intact a major barrier between any global acceptance of Hamas leadership in the Palestinian territories. There's no sign that he'll go to Gaza anytime soon for security reasons, hence his Damascus office means Syria will continue to be criticized for harboring terrorists.
Quote:
"We say to the Islamic nation: You want neither to pay charity nor to wage jihad? You want neither to give us financial aid nor to wage jihad? How are we supposed to liberate Palestine? How are we supposed to regain the Al-Aqsa Mosque? How are we supposed to be a great nation facing the world? By Allah, we have no choice but to sacrifice our property and our souls. This is the way. There is no other way." -- Mashal, visiting Sudan, on Al-Jazeera in 2006
