Shin Bet: Hamas, Jihad set to renew attacks; IDF kills top militant
By Amos Harel
Senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives have
recently resumed planning terror attacks for
immediate execution, in defiance of the
cease-fire, Shin Bet security service sources said
last night.
One such operative, the sources
said, was Mohammed Sidr, the
head of Islamic Jihad's
military wing in Hebron, whom
Israel killed yesterday morning
during an attempt to arrest
him. Defense sources said that
Sidr planned to send a
booby-trapped car into either
Jerusalem or Hebron in the near
future, and had already acquired the car.
Israel holds Sidr, 25, responsible for attacks
that killed 21 people, and he has long been one
of the top names on Israel's wanted list.
Last night, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz met
with his Palestinian counterpart, Mohammed
Dahlan, in an effort to calm the increased
violence of the last few days, which Sidr's
death is expected to escalate. Islamic Jihad
announced yesterday that it will avenge Sidr's
killing, with senior organization members
hinting that they plan an attack inside the
Green Line in retaliation - though the
organization insisted that it otherwise remains
committed to the cease-fire.
But Shin Bet and Israel Defense Forces sources
said last night that Hamas and Islamic Jihad
cells in various parts of the West Bank had
been planning attacks for immediate execution
even before Sidr's death. They added that the
organizations' leaders in Damascus and Gaza had
tacitly approved this change: Previously, both
groups had confined themselves to preparing for
operations after the cease-fire ended.
In addition, IDF sources said, Palestinian
Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat is encouraging
Fatah cells in the northern West Bank to commit
attacks as well. They said that Arafat recently
sent money to the Fatah cell in the Balata
refugee camp that carried out Tuesday's suicide
bombing in Rosh Ha'ayin.
"Hamas is not interested in blowing up the
cease-fire just now," a senior IDF source said.
"But they want to create a mechanism that
enables them to hit us whenever it's convenient
for them - to protest the killing or arrest of
wanted men or the failure to release additional
prisoners. And Islamic Jihad, of course, is
starting to imitate them."
Nevertheless - and in contrast to the Shin Bet -
the IDF supports transferring additional West
Bank cities to the Palestinians, both to put
the PA to a real test as soon as possible and
to prevent the diplomatic process from
collapsing due to a lack of Israeli gestures.
This was one of the topics that Mofaz discussed
with Dahlan last night - along with Israel's
traditional demand that the PA start taking
action against Hamas and Jihad. Palestinian
sources described the meeting as positive, but
said that no agreements were reached, and the
two will continue the discussions in the coming
days.
The PA's Preventive Security Service did raid an
Islamic Jihad stronghold in the Shati refugee
camp in Gaza yesterday - but this was in
response to a bomb that went off Wednesday
night at the entrance to the service's
headquarters in the camp, which the PA believes
was set by Jihad members. The raid sparked a
firefight between the Palestinian forces in
which seven people were injured, including
passersby. The PA also arrested a senior Jihad
official. The organization responded by
accusing the PA of collaborating with Israel in
Sidr's death.
The Sidr operation
The decision to arrest Sidr was made after a
member of his cell, whom the Shin Bet had
arrested in an earlier sweep, reported that his
boss - who had initially halted his terrorist
activity when the cease-fire was declared on
June 29 - had resumed planning terror attacks
for execution in the near future. The informant
also made the arrest possible by telling his
interrogators that Sdir's usual hideout was a
carpentry shop in downtown Hebron.
At 1 A.M. yesterday, members of the Shin Bet and
Yamam, the police's special anti-terrorist
unit, surrounded the building and called on
Sidr to give himself up. When Sidr refused, the
Israeli forces fired an antitank missile at the
building, which apparently wounded him but did
not kill him.
At about 5 A.M., a sniffer dog was sent into the
building. Sidr shot the dog and killed him,
after which a firefight broke out between Sidr
and the Israeli forces. Sidr also threw hand
grenades during the battle.
IDF sources stressed that the troops had been
explicitly ordered to take Sidr alive, but he
was apparently killed during the firefight.
Later, a bulldozer was brought in to destroy
part of the house, and the troops discovered
Sidr's body, with a Glilon rifle by his side.
According to the IDF, Sidr was running an
explosives laboratory in the building. When
soldiers searched the site after Sidr's death,
they found bits of explosives, chemical
fertilizers used in making bombs and other
bomb-making equipment. The owner of the
building, a Jordanian citizen living in Hebron,
was arrested on suspicion of having provided
Sidr with the hideout.
Commenting on the operation afterward, Colonel
Haggai Mordechai, the commander of the Hebron
Brigade, said: "Our responsibility is to ensure
the security of Israel's citizens. Anywhere we
learn of preparations for an attack taking
place, it is our obligation to act to foil
it."
Defense Minister Mofaz called Sidr a "ticking
bomb," but told American envoy John Wolf that
Israel would continue to make "every effort" to
support the continuation of the diplomatic
process. Palestinian Security Minister Dahlan
countered that Israeli operations in the
territories could cause the cease-fire to
collapse and demanded that Israel restrain such
operations.
The defense establishment attributes the
following attacks to Sidr:
* The attack on Worshipers Way in Hebron last
November, which killed 12 members of the
Israeli security services.
* A shooting attack on a yeshiva in the
settlement of Otniel last December, which
killed four of the students.
* The murder of two observers, a Turk and a
Swiss, from TIPH, the Temporary International
Presence in Hebron, in March 2002 (the
assailant apparently mistook the foreigners for
Israelis). A third observer was injured in this
attack.
* The murder of a resident of Kiryat Arba in a
shooting attack in July 2001.
* A shooting attack on a bus at Jerusalem's
French Hill Junction in November 2001 that
killed two teenagers, a boy and a girl, and
injured more than 80 other people.
Israel has been hunting Sidr for more than two
years and once attempted, unsuccessfully, to
assassinate him. Since last November, the IDF
has arrested dozens of members of his cell,
including some in the last few weeks.
Since the cease-fire took effect six weeks ago,
most Islamic Jihad operatives have refrained
from actual terror attacks, devoting their
efforts instead to recruiting new members and
upgrading their store of bombs. The exception
has been a cell in Jenin, which, among other
attacks, carried out the suicide bombing that
killed an Israeli woman in Kfar Yavetz a month
ago. According to some assessments, however,
this "rebellious" cell's activities received
tacit approval from Islamic Jihad's leadership
in Damascus and Gaza.
There were a few other incidents in the
territories yesterday, with no casualties.
Palestinians shot at the settlement of Kadim,
near Jenin, and at IDF outposts in Gush Katif
in Gaza. In Nablus, the IDF demolished the
house of Hamas operative Islam Kafisha, who
perpetrated the suicide bombing in Ariel on
Tuesday. In Qalqilyah, Palestinians set off a
bomb when IDF forces arrested a wanted man;
another Palestinian was arrested in Nablus. |
