Posted on 10/16/2003 7:40:04 PM PDT by truthandlife
Israeli security sources Thursday dismissed arrests made by Palestinian police in connection with the deadly roadside bombing of a United States diplomatic convoy in Gaza the day before, Army Radio reported.
Palestinian authorities said earlier Thursday that they detained eight militants from the Popular Resistance Committees in connection with the bombing, in which three Americans were killed
But Israel rejected the claim,
the radio said, maintaining that the arrests were an imaginary measure designed to placate the U.S., and that there was no evidence to link the three to the attack.
Among the militants arrested are former members of the Palestinian security forces. Palestinian police briefly exchanged fire with militants in two of the raids, security officials said.
In one overnight raid, in the Jabaliya camp in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian police were shot at when they arrived and searched several homes before making arrests.
Later in the day, officers tried to detain another suspect in Jabaliya, but aborted the mission when they came under machine-gun fire. Security officials said two civilians and two officers were wounded. Several dozen residents took to the streets to protest the attempted arrest.
A massive remote-controlled bomb demolished an armor-plated jeep in the convoy carrying U.S. diplomatic personnel, including a cultural envoy from the U.S. embassy, through the northern Gaza Strip on their way to interview potential Palestinian students who were candidates for an academic Fulbright scholarship. One other American was wounded.
The Popular Resistance Committees consists largely of former Palestinian security officials and disgruntled members of PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, the security officials said.
The group denied involvement in the attack, but confirmed the arrests of its members, one of whom was identified as Ahmed Saker, 25.
"We made clear to the Palestinian Authority we had nothing to do with the bombing. We were stunned by the unjustified arrests," a leader of the movement said.
Palestinian witnesses said that when Palestinian police came to Block 8 of Jabalya to make arrests, a gun fight erupted. Seven members of the PA security forces were injured, Israel Radio reported.
Sources in Israel and in the PA had speculated whether the Fatah splinter group was behind the attack.
PA security officials: We warned U.S. Senior PA security officials claimed Wednesday that they had repeatedly warned U.S. officials in the past months to change travel routines in the territories, in order to avoid such an attack.
The PA security officials said they warned Americans that routine movements in GMC vehicles that have diplomatic license plates and conspicuous bodyguards could be dangerous. Members of militant Palestinian opposition groups could be collecting information about routine movements of the U.S. vehicles and personnel, the PA officials cautioned.
The officials said that they formulated such warnings in very specific terms and relayed them on a number of occasions, as in the case of a meeting held three months ago with CIA personnel in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Meanwhile, a team of FBI officials is expected to arrive in Israel on Thursday to carry out an investigation into the attack.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft described the delegation as a "fly-away team" consisting of investigators and forensic experts. FBI officials said it would be a cooperative probe involving Israel's police force.
The FBI agents do not intend to go into Gaza immediately. Instead, they will rely on Israel to collect and preserve evidence, with the FBI doing the detailed examinations of what is found, the officials said.
It was established Wednesday that American personnel who coordinate the movements of U.S. officials in the territories communicate travel plans in advance to PA security officials, sending the detailed information by fax or telephone. Such reports spell out the names of persons who are taking part in work trips in the territories, the times when U.S. vehicles are to be moving through various areas, and the routes to be taken by the cars.
In view of this practice of relaying advance information, some analysts speculated Wednesday that the terrorists who perpetrated the attack had advance knowledge of the U.S. convoy's intention to cross into the village of Beit Hanun.
At least a portion of the information attained by the terrorists, the analysts hypothesized, came from official PA sources.
The U.S. named the three victims of the first deadly attack on American officials since the start of the intifada as John Branchizio, 37, from Texas; Mark Parson, 31, from New York; and John Martin Linde, 30, from Missouri. The three were on contract to the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv through the defense contracting company Dyncorp, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
Bush: Terror compromises Palestinian statehood U.S. President George W. Bush blamed Palestinian authorities Wednesday for the deaths, saying their failure to create security forces to combat terrorism "continues to cost lives."
"Palestinian authorities should have acted long ago to fight terror in all its forms," said the president in a written statement. "There must be an empowered prime minister who controls all Palestinian forces - reforms that continue to be blocked by Yasser Arafat."
"The failure to undertake these reforms and dismantle the terrorist organizations constitutes the greatest obstacle to achieving the Palestinian people's dream of statehood," Bush said.
The European Union also took the Palestinians to task, with the body's foreign policy chief Javier Solana telling Arafat that "condemnations and excuses will not do."
Arafat vowed to track down those responsible for the attack, which he called a "dirty and shameful" act.
Both Islamic Jihad and Hamas denied responsibility for the attack, and there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the incident. Three months ago, a roadside bomb was detonated beside an American convoy traveling in the same area, but without injury.
The blast went off around 10:15 A.M. Wednesday as the convoy drove near a gas station on the outskirts of the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, along the main north-south road.
Witnesses at the scene said a silver Cherokee jeep used by American diplomats was completely destroyed by the blast. Parts of the vehicle were strewn in a 30-meter radius around a crater created by the explosion.
The explosion tore the car in half and left the wreckage twisted with the tires up in the air. An AP reporter saw a gray wire with an on-off switch leading from the scene of the attack to a small concrete room at the side of the road.
Soon after the blast, the IDF sent tanks and armored vehicles under cover of a helicopter gunship into the areas of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lehiya to aid the Americans in evacuating the wounded man and the bodies of the victims.
An IDF rescue helicopter evacuated the wounded man to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva.
You can twist perceptions .. but reality won't budge!
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