I don't know how accurate the report may be, but DEBKA is claiming the bombing was a Hizbollah, not Hamas, operation:
debka.com
Hizballah’s 1800 Forward Command’s mission was set up to design “quality” terror attacks against Israel. DEBKAfile’s exclusive counter-terror sources reveal: The Tel Aviv attack was originally planned for Saturday or Sunday, April 15-16, to coincide with the finale of the three-day Tehran conference in support of the Palestinian cause. The last pieces were put in place at a four-way meeting last week in the Iranian capital between the Damascus-based Jihad Islami chief Ramadan Shalah, the Jihad Islami Gaza commander Mohammad al Hindi, the Hizballah second-in-command Sheik Ali Qassem and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards chief of the al Quds Brigades and Middle East terror networks, General Kasim Suleimani.
The bombing attack at the old Tel Aviv bus terminal Monday was the first suicide strike against Israel to be planned outside Palestinian territory. While from last week, Israeli security forces had more than 70 terror threats in hand, they had no advance intelligence of this one. Hours later, Israeli interrogators were still groping in the dark for the full shape of the conspiracy.
Israel’s counter-intelligence services had never heard name of the Jihad Islami suicide bomber, Sami Salim Mohammed Hammed, 16, from Tubas, although they were familiar with the network which ran him. They assume he was kept out of sight by Hizballah agents, who went to the West Bank to choose and prepare him for the mission, well away from Israel’s ears and eyes in the Palestinian territory. Hammed’s departure from his home last Tuesday or Wednesday, April 12-13, was therefore unnoticed.
Five hours after the blast in Tel Aviv, Israel forces surrounded Tubas, where they assume he was trained, and carried out arrests. Israeli investigations soon uncovered the fact that the al Aqsa Suicide Brigades of Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah had pre-knowledge - if not more - of the Tel Aviv attack. They keep cells in touch with Hizballah agents. For this attack, they are believed to have been asked to aid in the transportation of the bomber to a point close to his Tel Aviv target, or possibly all the way there. |
