Posted on 06/27/2004 5:09:00 PM PDT by blam
Israeli troops kill militant leaders in secret tunnel
By Ohad Gozani in Tel Aviv
(Filed: 28/06/2004)
Israel's most wanted man and six other Palestinian militants have been killed in a raid by paratroopers who found the men huddled in a secret tunnel beneath a house in the old city of Nablus.
Among the dead was Nayef Abu Sharkh, 40, the commander of the militant group the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank. Local leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and four other gunmen were also killed.
Palestinians shout for revenge at the funeral of Nayef Abu Sharkh
The troops stumbled on the men during an operation in which paratroop units were carrying out house-to-house searches, codenamed "Full Court Press" after American basketball defensive terminology.
They found the militants' hideout on Saturday after seeing a fugitive from an earlier encounter in Nablus slip into the house, military officials said.
After the men in the tunnel ignored orders to surrender, the paratroopers lobbed hand grenades and fired automatic weapons through openings at both ends and detonated charges.
No survivors were found when troops later went into the tunnel.
The attack happened in the ancient casbah sector of the city. The battalions had ringed the area with barbed wire to carry out the searches in an operation that began on Thursday and ended yesterday.
Abu Sharkh had long topped the most wanted list. His group is linked to the Fatah movement of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader.
He was said to have been behind a Palestinian bombing in Tel Aviv last year that killed 23 people and a similar attack that killed two people in the town of Kfar Saba a year earlier.
However, he was also at the vanguard of calls for Mr Arafat to clean up corruption and for the jettisoning of a generation of politicians that many young Palestinians see as discredited.
In Nablus, 20,000 mourners turned out for the funeral of the gunmen, many chanting "revenge, revenge". Some vented their anger at Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian prime minister, and called him a "cockroach" over his impotence in curbing Israeli raids.
In a statement, Mr Qureia condemned the raid as a "criminal, barbaric act". He said: "This crime shows that Israel is continuing its strategy of killings and assassinations against all the Palestinians."
Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, presiding over the routine weekly cabinet meeting, praised the operation as an "impressive success" in the war on terrorism.
A spokesman for the Al-Aqsa Brigades vowed retaliation. "This revenge will come like an earthquake for the state of Israel and may include hitting citizens, soldiers or the government," he said.
Military officials said Abu Sharkh was also the chief liaison with Lebanon's pro-Iranian Hezbollah group, which has been increasingly involved in anti-Israeli activity in Nablus and the rest of the West Bank.
The security sweep in Nablus coincided with a visit by a top-level American envoy who sounded out Palestinian and Israeli officials on the ramifications of Mr Sharon's plan to give up a bloc of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and some West Bank outposts by 2005.
At least six Israeli soldiers were injured when Palestinian militants set off explosions from a tunnel under an army outpost at Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip last night. Rescue was hampered by Palestinian militants, who fired guns and mortars at emergency workers. The attack was claimed by Al-Aqsa Brigades and Hamas. - Ohad Gozani
This was a great find. And all the bad guys went "KABOOM"!
Allahu Fubar!
Rock the casbah!
Guess it wasn't much of a secret.
One Word: GOOD!!!!
Boy will this upset the palis. They are sooo going to dislike Israel now. Not like before, when the calls for the end of Isreal weren't meaningful.
Now they are really, really, REALLY gonna mean it!
(way to go Israel!)
Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about! No BS negotiations! "Come out or your dead."
I like it.
FMCDH(BITS)
FMCDH
More rat hole denizens discover quick exit to virgins
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