Posted on 12/21/2004 10:10:06 AM PST by IAF ThunderPilot
The number of terror attacks and terror fatalities dropped significantly in 2004, when only six suicide bombings were carried out within Israel and eight in the territories, an IDF Intelligence Branch official informed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday.
According to the official, a total of 116 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets in 2004, with 55 of them killed in suicide attacks. A total of 73 civilians and 43 security personnel were killed.
The suicide attack fatality figure is a 60 percent decline compared with 2003. In addition, the number of attempted suicide bombings has declined by 50 percent. In the six suicide attacks in Israel, 51 were killed, and another four at the Erez checkpoint in the territories.
Security forces have this year foiled 114 planned suicide bombings and apprehended a total of 92 potential suicide bombers, said the official.
Fifty-two of the would-be bombers were affiliated with the Fatah, which has become the lead terror group.
At present, most suicide bombers are sent from the Nablus and Jenin areas, according to the officer. He noted that Hamas leadership in Gaza was significantly weakened in the past year because of the assassination of its leadership by Israel. The group has also been weakened in the Hebron area that was responsible for many killings.
At the same time, outside forces, mostly the Hizbullah, has boosted its support for the terror infrastructure of the Fatah in the West Bank, he said.
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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1103602489201
Shin Bet, IDF nab terror planner
A Jordanian citizen, who was recruited by the Abu Musa faction of Fatah and later by the Hizbullah to establish terror cells in the West Bank and launch attacks against Israelis, was arrested by the Shin Bet and IDF forces on August 25 of this year.
Details released for publication on Tuesday revealed that Muhammed Abu Joi'd, 25, underwent military training in Syria and Lebanon a number of times and also traveled to Iraq in 2003, where he joined the Iraqi army to fight against US soldiers deployed there.
The attacks he planned to carry out included placing a bomb on the railway tracks near Nahariya, abducting and murdering a soldier from one of the hitchhiking stations in the north, whose body he planned to hide and later use to negotiate the release of Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israel. He also planned to attack an Israel Police van in the north.
Born in Syria to a Palestinian family, Abu Joi'd moved with his family to Jordan when he was 7 years old. In 1998 he came to the territories, where he received a Palestinian identity card and worked through 1999 in northern Israel. During that period, he traveled to Jordan a number of times to visit his family, but with the outbreak of the Al-Aksa Intifada, he moved back to Jordan to live in 2001. A year later, he met with members of the Fatah Abu Musa faction, who persuaded him to launch terror activities against Israel in exchange for large sums of money.
In October 2002 he underwent military training in Syria and met with the head of the Fatah faction for Syria and Lebanon. It was there that he was informed that he would be sent to Lebanon to complete his training. Abu Joi'd later returned to Jordan, and in 2003 traveled to Iraq, where he joined a unit in the Iraqi army whose job was to prevent US forces from entering Baghdad.
After several weeks he returned to Jordan and met up with two friends. The three decided to establish an independent cell and attack Israeli targets in Jordan. They also planned to travel to Afghanistan or Chechnya and undergo additional military training, but due to lack of funds their plans were never realized. In December of that year, he met up with Hizbullah operatives in Syria, where he agreed to their request to set up terror cells in the West Bank and among the Israeli Arab sector. He was then smuggled into Lebanon in the trunk of a car. In Lebanon he underwent additional military training before returning to Syria.
In June of this year, after changing his passport which contained Syrian stamps, entered the West Bank under the guise of visiting relatives in Tulkarm
Abu Joi'd was arrested by security forces in the West Bank two months later.
Yet I must say one thing here: Great job IDF!
Ping!
With no money coming in from Saddam, there is less motivation for terror.
Not to mention that the fence is working (which is why the EU and other anti-semitic groups want it torn down - not enough dead Jews).
This is not just the money!!!
Its the work of the IDF elite forces, the intelligence, Sharon's leadership and IDF policy, the Security Fence, and only then comes the money part.
Ping
Sorry, I didn't mean to dismiss the IDF's efforts.
Give my best to your fellow IDF comrades - Israel is a better, safer place because of them (and of course you!)
I sure wish we could ask the Israeli's for some help fighting terrorists in Iraq and Iran. I'm sure they would be happy to send helpers.
However, this will never end as long as we have the axis of evil alive- Iran and Syria, as long as the Arab world is leaded by dictatorship, lies, brainwash, anti-simitism, poverty and low education.
Evil Arafat not life now that is good evil Saddam do not have power Be strong Izrael good strong country!thank you
Because they are all in Iraq. Looks like the President's plan is working.
Decline in terror due to sharon's leadership?
Obscene!
Did you miss intifada II?
Did you miss the last three years of unrelenting terror?
Did you miss 1000 dead Jews?
Did you miss 10000 injured Jews?
Did you miss the buses, the discos, the pizzerias?
And now the fat traitor wants to ethnicly cleanse Jews from parts of Israel, giving land to arab terrorists as a reward for the intifada!
Thanks to "sharon's leadership" Israel is well on its way to becoming muslim palestine.
You have got to be kidding! Gaza is NOT part of Eretz Yisrael. It was not part of biblical Israel. Putting two million hateful Palestinians outside our borders makes good sense. Moving 6,000 Jews from an area with two million Palestinians who wish to kill them makes good sense.
Ariel Sharon is the best Prime Minister we've had in a long time. Too long. The IDF and the fence are responsibile for the decline in terror, and Ariel Sharon directed the actions of both.
Israel will not become "Muslim Palestine" unless we try to rule over the Palestinian Arabs and let them become a majority within our borders.
You call Sharon a traitor? Do you do that from a comfortable living room in the States or from Israel?
I only meant the fact that his policy of fighting terrorists, the policy that allows the IDF to act as needed against the terrorists, has proven its superiority.
No matter how you look at this, the IDF has succeeded and this wouldnt have done without Sharon's policy!
The Palestinian terrorists are still in the territories. They are most certainly, except in very small numbers, not in Iraq. The reduction in terror is due to the security fence and resolute IDF action, nothing else.
I like President Bush. I think he has a lot of good ideas about the Middle East and about the nature of the problems in the region. I cannot give him credit for what he only marginally supported.
Exactly!
Right on!
LOL we both wrote almost the same thing twise
The Palestinians don't need to be paid to hate Jews or to try and kill us. They try every day. If I posted about every Palestinian terrorist attempt Free Republic would be full of such posts. What has changed is that they are not succeeding thanks to the security fence and resolute IDF action.
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