Jerusalem ? Jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti says he is a politician and did not order attacks on Israelis, but wrote Tuesday in response to questions submitted by The Associated Press that armed militias have “contributed” to the Palestinian struggle.

Barghouti, 43, said that activists imprisoned by Israel would one day lead the Palestinians apparently a hint that he considers himself a contender. Polls suggest he is the second-most popular Palestinian leader after Yasser Arafat.

Marwan Barghouti, the West Bank chief of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement raises his handcuffed hands on the opening day of his trial at Tel Aviv District Court earlier this month. Barghouti says he did not order attacks on Israelis, but says that armed militias have contributed to the Palestinian struggle.

Barghouti insists he isn’t a terrorist, as Israel has charged. “I didn’t participate in or give any orders to carry out military operations,” Barghouti said in his four-page response, written in Arabic script and handed to one of his lawyers, Khader Shkirat.

Israel accuses Barghouti of orchestrating more than three dozen terror attacks in the past two years. He was indicted last week in Tel Aviv District Court on charges of murder, attempted murder and involvement in terror organizations. In the courtroom, filled with reporters before the hearing, he raised his cuffed hands in the air and shouted triumphantly that “the intefadeh (Palestinian uprising) will be victorious.”

Barghouti was arrested by Israeli troops on April 15 while having lunch at a friend’s house in the West Bank town of Ramallah. He was interrogated for three months, then transferred to Haderim Prison near the Israeli coastal town of Netanya.

Barghouti was expelled from the West Bank by Israel in 1988 as an organizer of the first uprising, and returned in 1994, as part of interim peace deals. Upon his return, he became West Bank chief of Arafat’s Fatah movement and in 1996 was elected to the Palestinian parliament.

With the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in September 2000, after the collapse of peace talks, Barghouti became a fixture at Palestinian protests, leading crowds of stone-throwers toward Israeli army positions. Often, gunmen also joined the clashes, though Barghouti usually withdrew from the marches by the time firefights erupted.

Shortly after the outbreak of fighting, Fatah gunmen formed the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a militia that has since carried out scores of shooting attacks and several suicide bombings. Israeli security officials say Barghouti gradually was drawn into direct involvement in attacks, first defending them, then funneling money to militants, and finally orchestrating them.

While denying direct involvement, he praised the militia, writing that “the Al Aqsa Brigade contributed to the Palestinian resistance to occupation.” At another point, he stated, “I am with the uprising and the resistance, and I call for it, but I am not a military leader.”