Posted on 09/20/2004 12:16:37 PM PDT by yonif
Gunmen belonging to the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, Monday shot and killed two Palestinians suspected of collaboration with Israel.
The group said in a leaflet distributed in the West Bank that the two, Fadel Odeh and Amjad Ajaj, had confessed to working for the Shin Bet and assisting in the killing of three Fatah fugitives.
Odeh, 26, and Ajaj, 25, were kidnapped two weeks ago from their homes in the village of Saideh in the Tulkarem area.
Their families said the kidnappers were members of the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades.
Around noon Monday, the kidnappers brought Ajaj to the main square in the center of Tulkarem in a car. "They threw the man out of the car, then opened fire at him, killing him immediately," said a shopkeeper. "The man had his hands tied behind his back."
He said one of the masked gunmen shouted towards the crowd, which included many schoolchildren returning home, that the victim was an Israeli agent.
The bullet-riddled body of the second suspected collaborator was found in an open field outside Tulkarem earlier in the day.
Palestinian Authority security officials in the city said they were investigating the killings. "We had been notified by the families of the two men they had gone missing two weeks ago," said a senior PA police officer. "Today we were told that Fatah executed the two men because of their links with Israel. We are checking the report."
Fatah gunmen in the West Bank have claimed responsibility for the killing of most alleged collaborators in the past four years. Last week Fatah militiamen in Ramallah kidnapped and executed another young man accused of working for Israel's security services.
The man, Rami Yaghmour, was kidnapped as he was being escorted to court by members of the PA's Special Forces security apparatus. He was taken to the nearby Al-Am'ari refugee camp, where he was shot and killed in public.
(steely)
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