Tel Aviv, 6 Feb. (AKI) - Israeli soldiers killed an Islamic Jihad commander in a raid on the West Bank town of Nablus on Tuesday morning. Two Israeli soldiers were injured in the skirmish, Israel Radio reported. About ten army jeeps entered the city before dawn and surrounded a house where militant commander, Ahmed Radad, was hiding, the report said. "Be bery, bery quiet. We're hunting jihadis. heh heh heh heh heh..."
"Enough with the jokes, Abner. Just park the damn jeep." |
According to an Israeli Defence Force spokesman when the troops called on residents to leave the building, | "Come out or we'll shoot!" |
a Palestinian began shooting toward troops from inside. | "You'll never take us alive, infidel!" |
The troops returned fire, the spokesman said. Islamic Jihad confirmed to the Associated Press that Radad, a senior official in the radical Islamist movement, was killed in the shootout. The attack follows an incident on Monday night when the Israeli military fired a missile at a car killing two Palestinian militants in the northern Gaza Strip. According to the Israelis the attack was launched at a group of militants preparing a Qassam rocket attack against Israel. A Palestinian security source cited by Tel Aviv daily Haartez, identified the dead in Monday's strike as Rami Hanun and Hassan Asfour, local commanders of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing close to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction.
Al-Aqsa vowed revenge. "Our answer is open war on all Zionists, soldiers and civilians," Haartez quoted a spokesman for the group Abu Qusai as saying. Paramedics and witnesses said the missile destroyed the car and incinerated the two men inside. Three bystanders were wounded in the blast, they said. The targeted vehicle was a yellow minibus traveling on a farm road. | Riding the Short Bus to oblivion, nice touch |
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