Posted on 01/14/2002 1:52:45 PM PST by truthandlife
Israeli officials say they see signs of a new relationship between the Palestinian Authority and Iran, in which Teheran is supplying arms and the Iranian-backed Hizbullah militia is hoping to set up its own terror network in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The Israeli military has been saying for days that the Karine A ship, seized by commandoes in the Red Sea on January 3, was loaded mostly with Iranian-made weapons and bound for the PA, but today the allegations became more strident.
The Hebrew daily Yediot Ahronot quoted IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz as saying that starting in April, "direct contacts began to be forged gradually between Yasser Arafat's close aides and the most senior levels in Teheran."
"A most dangerous axis began to be created, consisting of an attempt to infiltrate the region," he was quoted as saying.
Israeli government adviser Dore Gold said that after Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000 Iran began to look for ways to involve the Hizbullah militia - which has bedeviled Israel in Lebanon - in the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"Iranian involvement in the Karine A affair reinforces the impression it is seeking a regional role, largely by meddling in terrorism," he said.
Iran has said it had no connection with the ship.
PA Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo denied the allegations of a strategic alliance with Iran, saying they were part of a disinformation campaign designed to internationally isolate the PA.
"These allegations are absurd," he said. "They are trying to spread the news that there is an alleged coalition between us and Iran and Hizbullah ... because they want to frighten the United States, Europe and some Arab countries."
Boaz Ganor, head of Israel's International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism, said relations between Iran and the Palestinians cooled considerably after the 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the PLO, with Iran fiercely opposed to any recognition of the Jewish state.
But, he added, since the outbreak of renewed fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in September 2000, Iran has been looking at the PA as an increasingly attractive ally, while the cash-strapped Palestinians have been in need of a sponsor.
"Once the PA made a decision to choose the path of violence, other foreign benefactors became less likely to help it, while Iran became more sympathetic," he said.
The main instrument of Teheran's influence in the Palestinian territories is Lebanon's Hizbullah, which shares fundamentalist Islamic beliefs with Islamic Jihad and Hamas, Ganor said.
"It has also managed to recruit Israeli Arabs to help prepare a terror infrastructure," he said. "I can't see that happening without Iranian government approval."
Ganor was unable to confirm or deny a Time magazine report that Iran was paying the salaries of some PA officials but said it sounded plausible.
"They're helping to finance arms, they might well be helping in other ways," he said.
Israeli officials gave no estimate of how much money Iran may be sending to the Palestinians.
A Yediot Ahronot analysis cites Israeli intelligence officials as saying that they have intercepted messages between the PA and Teheran and have evidence that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved the loading of the Karine A off the Iranian coast.
However, the article largely agrees with Abed Rabbo on Israel's aims in seeking to publicize the allegations as widely as possible. "The new formula, 'Arafat equals Khamenei', is designed to cause the PA damage to its image ... and to delay the transfer of money from European countries to the PA," it said.
Debka-sniping is a time-honored tradition; no post should interfere with it.
"NEW YORK (AP) -- Hidden somewhere among the mountains of Afghanistan, a wealthy and elusive Islamic extremist is plotting the end of the last great superpower, the United States.
In his own eyes and those of many militants, Osama bin Laden and his loyal army of mujahadeen already have laid low the other infidel superpower, destroying the Soviet Union in a debilitating decade-long war in Afghanistan.
Bin Laden has now sworn to end U.S. influence in his native Saudi Arabia and eventually the Islamic world.
He has the money to do it. Security analyst Arnaud de Borchgrave, a one-time acquaintance of bin Laden's, estimates his fortune at more than 200 million -- and warns he has the ability to tap the riches of other sympathizers, as well.
He has already left a trail of bombs and blood, a trail that may lead to the World Trade Center blast and perhaps deadly bombings that have killed 24 U.S. servicemen in Saudi Arabia since 1995.
Ominously, experts say he has joined hands with fellow terrorists, including Hezbollah and its patron, Iran's militant Islamic government.
"I think you, have an 'atomic bomb' brewing, between bin Laden, Hezbollah and the Iranians." Says Kenneth Katzman, Congress's terrorism analyst. "If these two huge forces are married, either could set off the spark. Sooner or later you are going to see more from these people."
What the world already has seen is chilling enough.
The State Department calls bin Laden, believed to be 44, "one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world today."
When he speaks, U.S. authorities listen.
In February, bin Laden's renewed threat of a "holy war" in Saudi Arabia against U.S. soldiers and civilians led the State Department to issue an urgent warning.
Bin Laden made his militant contacts during the Afghan war. He then used them to set up terrorist training camps in the Sudan and to finance attacks against the moderate governments of Egypt, ALGERIA, Yemen and his native Saudi Arabia, which exiled him in 1994.
The evidence grows that bin Laden already has struck at the United States, perhaps with Hezbollah's help. Although his role in last year's attack on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. airmen is unclear, the evidence is strong his followers planted the November 1995 bomb that killed five American servicement and two Indians in Riyadh.
The men arrested and executed for the crime said they acted after receiving faxes from an organization run by bin Laden.
And evidence mounts that bin Laden had close connections to the World Trade Center bombers who killed six and injured more than 1,000 in their February 1993 strike in the heart of the United States…
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