Suicide bombers posed as anti-war demonstrators participated in march commemorating death of 'human shield' Rachel Corrie
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Posted: May 2, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
The two suicide bombers who blew up a seafront walkway and restaurant in Tel Aviv, killing three people and injuring at least 55 others, had earlier posed as anti-war activists and "human shields" and had participated in a Palestinian march to commemorate the death of American anti-war demonstrator Rachel Corrie, killed in March by an Israeli bulldozer, according to the London Telegraph.
The two British men, Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, carried out the attack on a tourist restaurant-bar named Mike's Place nearby the American embassy early Wednesday. Hanif blew himself up when a private security guard asked for his identification. Although Hanif's body was ripped apart, the Israeli guard survived.
Sharif also attempted to detonate himself but the bomb failed to go off. Israeli police and intelligence agencies have been hunting for Sharif, who fled after the attack. According to the Telegraph, the two had reportedly been in Gaza for at least four days before Wednesday's attack.
In an odd twist, a Western pro-Palestinian activist told the Telegraph the two terrorists participated in a protest march in Rafah to commemorate Rachel Corrie, an American "human shield" killed in March by an Israeli bulldozer when she tried to stop the destruction of a terrorist's home.
Though anti-war and pro-Palestinian activists have called the 23-year-old American peace activist's death "murder," accusing the Israeli government of deliberately killing her, eyewitnesses sympathetic to Corrie later admitted that it was an accident, brought on by her attempt to jump on to the approaching bulldozer.
An earlier photo of Corrie, who was a member of the militant International Solidarity Movement, shows her, just one month before her death, burning a mock U.S. flag during a rally of what appears to be mostly Arab children in the Gaza Strip Feb. 15.
To help Israel in its hunt for the 27-year-old Sharif, Britain has brought in officers from its intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6.
Married with two children, Sharif was a pupil at a British prep school but converted to Islam while living in London, where he went to college, according to the Telegraph report. Hanif, who died in the powerful blast, was 21, and a student at a west London community college. After leaving school Hanif reportedly traveled throughout the Mideast and studied Arabic at Damascus University.
British officials are looking at the radical Islamic group Al Muhajiroun, led by Omar Bakri Mohammed. The group held meetings at the mosque in Hounslow that Hanif attended, and also has a strong presence in Derby where Sharif lived. Yet, said the report, sources say Hanif and Sharif might have met in Damascus, indicating a probable link with other militant organizations including Hezbollah. |
