Posted on 05/08/2002 3:07:26 PM PDT by Clive
A police sapper assisted by a robot
neutralizes an explosive device
carried by the bomber.
(Photo: Baz Ratner)
IDF troops arrested 29 Palestinians, among them two senior Hamas militants, and seized an explosive belt in an operation carried out Tuesday night in the West Bank city of Tul Karm. The operation followed warnings of terrorists planning to leave the city in order to carry out suicide bombings inside Israel.
The two leaders of Tul Karm's Hamas military wing were named as Abas Fayed and Mohand Sharm. The two were involved in a large number of suicide bombings, including a series of suicide attacks in the coastal town of Netanya.
Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said Wednesday that two other militants who were planning to carry out a suicide bombing were arrested in the operation.
Soldiers from the Golani Brigade and the elite Duvdevan unit participated in the operation, as well as reserve paratroopers. The troops lefts the Tul Karm refugee camp Wednesday afternoon but remained in the city.
Palestinian sources said Wednesday afternoon that IDF helicopters attacked in the targets in the northern neighborhood of the Tul Karm refugee camp.
They said a number of buildings were damaged, but no injuries were reported.
Bomber survives after blowing himself up at Megiddo junction
A suicide bomber blew himself up Wednesday at Megiddo junction, a few miles from the northern West Bank Palestinian flashpoint of Jenin, police said.
Police initially said the bomber was killed in the explosion, which may have gone off prematurely. Later police said that the attacker was alive and seriously wounded, and had fought against a sapper robot that dragged him from the roadside into the center of the highway.
His wounds were described as light to moderate. A bystander suffered from emotional shock, rescue workers said.
A group of soldiers was standing at a nearby bus stop at the time of the explosion, and might have been the intended target, Army Radio said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the second suicide bombing in a 12-hour period. Late Tuesday a Hamas suicide bomber in Rishon Letzion set off a blast that ripped through a billiard parlor, killing the attacker and 15 people.
It's refreshing to see such exactitude in the press.
My first weapons instructor had that attitude.
"If it is trying to kill you, it isn't a human."
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