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| Middle East |
| IDF, Shin Bet strike at cell behind Park Hotel attack |
| 2002-05-16 |
| The IDF and the Shin Bet security services have arrested or killed almost all of the Hamas terror cell from Tul Karm that was responsible for the Seder night suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya on March 28, in which 29 people were killed and 150 were injured. This is a good, one might almost say a spectacular sweep. It tells other cells the same thing could happen to them... Investigations into the Netanya bombing revealed that the same cell was also behind a suicide bombing in Netanya's market on March 4 2001 in which 3 people were killed and 55 injured, and third attack in Netanya on March 18 2001, in which five people were killed and 74 injured. So it wasn't their first hit. They really liked hitting Netanya... The cell's leader Abbas Said was arrested together with several other members of the cell during a four-day incursion into Tulkarm in early May. Said went into hiding following the assassination of a senior member of the cell, Fuaz Badran, in July last year and of Amar Hadari, a bomb maker, the following month. Knew he was on the list, did he? After the assassination of Badran and Hadari, the Shin Bet arrested several of the people connected with the cell in Tulkarm and obtained intelligence that two suicide bombers from the cell, Abed Ouda and Nidal Kalk were to carry out further attacks. Their names were handed over to the Palestinian Authority, but the PA did nothing to stop them from going ahead with their plans. Ouda carried out the Park Hotel attack and Kalk was arrested during Operation Defensive Shield. Made a list, checked it twice, went to work on it. The key is to never take anyone off the list until they're dead... In January this year the Shin Bet received information that Hamas operatives in Nablus had succeeded in transferring a bomb to the Tul Karm cell. During March the Shin Bet managed to put together a partial picture of the planned attack, but details were insufficient. On the day of the bombing they received information of the planned time of the bombing but not the location and police failed to apprehend the bomber. That's frustrating as hell, knowing it's going to happen and even knowing when, but not knowing where. Ouda was driven to Netanya in a car with Israeli license plates by Fathi Hatziv, a Hamas activist from Kafr Kafin, who was arrested at the beginning of Operation Defensive Shield. Ouda was dressed as a woman and carried an Israeli identity card. Bet he felt really heroic, wearing ladies' underwear... Said revealed during his interrogation that the Park Hotel bombing was planned over a long period of time but that he had frozen plans for the bombing for several months. However when he saw that Fatah was carrying out attacks inside Israel and that Yasser Arafat had not given orders not to carry out attacks he decided to act. Said told the Shin Bet that he received $10-13,000 a month to finance his operations from Hamas’s Damascus headquarters and that he believes the money came from the United States or Europe. This is all just so inspiring. We knew all along, except for those among us who impose their own blinders, that Yasser was colluding and encouraging the bombings. The money flow from Damascus isn't a surprise, either. Islamic Jihad is controlled from there — and is actually based there, and it's the entry point for the money pipeline for Hamas. Nor is the money originating in the U.S. and Europe a surprise. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |