Posted on 09/09/2001 7:12:48 AM PDT by Syene
:: ARAFAT BRANCHING OUT? According to a DEBKAfile report, Arafat has made initial overtures to extremist elements in the international anti-globalist movement. He is checking out their organizational infrastructure to find usable launching pads for Palestinian-sponsored terrorist operations against American, Jewish and Israeli targets in the United States, Canada and Europe, reviving memories of former Palestinian infiltrations of protest movements in the sixties and seventies. The DEBKAfile believes the Palestinian approach was made to factions of the Black Bloc anarchists, who last month turned the international demonstration outside the Group of Eight summit in Genoa into a rampage. An advance group already in Israel is being presented as unofficial peace watchers. But the international terrorists, here as tourists, are already showing up at Palestinian-Israeli pressure points. Last month, they spearheaded the clash between a small demonstration outside Orient House and the Jerusalem police, using disruptive techniques seen at protests in Seattle, Quebec City and Genoa. Some marched at the funeral of PFLP chief Abu Ali Mustafa last Tuesday. Next day, they dismantled Israeli army roadblocks and broke into Palestinian Beit Jallah after the Israeli incursion.
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:: OTHER NEWS IN THE REGION: Iraq has expanded and restored a range of military production lines throughout the country. So far, at least eight factories have been operating at full production. Many of the plants are believed located near the Jordanian and Syrian borders. Last month, US CIA deputy director John McLaughlin said Iraq is hiding an arsenal of missiles with a range of 650 kilometers. These missiles, he said, can target Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Meanwhile, at least 20 specially-trained Iraqi soldiers are dead and up to 200 have been admitted to hospital after taking part in a chemical weapons exercise that went wrong. News of the training accident emerged last week amid concerns that Saddam Hussein has rebuilt his chemical weapons arsenal. Saddam last used chemical weapons against the Kurds in March 1988 at Halabjah causing thousands of injuries.
It won't be me, ROL. Israel has known Arafat since before Munich. It is the entire rest of the world that needs convinced.
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