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Hamas recruit says he was trained in Syria
Bakersfield Californian ^ | 3/29/05 | Ravi Nessman - AP

Posted on 03/29/2005 3:07:48 PM PST by NormsRevenge

ASHKELON, Israel (AP) - A 20-year-old Palestinian recruited from a mosque in Gaza by Hamas militants told The Associated Press in a jailhouse interview Tuesday that he received weeks of military training in a Hamas camp in Syria this year.

The allegations by Osama Mattar, now in Israeli custody, mark the first time a Palestinian has spoken publicly about being trained in Syria, and contradict repeated Syrian denials.

The training base outside Damascus was far from secret and was once even inspected by Syrian intelligence agents, Mattar said.

"They know very well about the presence of Hamas," he said. "What they may not have known about was the presence of a guy from Gaza coming to train at the training camp in Syria."

Israel has long accused Syria of allowing Palestinian militants to train there and offered up Mattar - arrested March 2 as he tried to cross back into Gaza - as proof.

Israeli officials also said the timeframe of Mattar's five-week training, which ended in mid-February, proved Hamas was not serious about halting attacks on Israel. Mattar disagreed, saying his trip had been planned months before any talk of a cease-fire.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups have acknowledged they train Palestinians in Lebanon.

Hamas officials declined public comment Tuesday, but said privately it made no sense to run training bases in Syria when it can use neighboring Lebanon, home to sprawling Palestinian refugee camps.

Syrian officials at the Foreign Ministry, who are usually slow to respond to such sensitive topics, were not available for comment Tuesday, despite repeated attempts by The Associated Press.

With Western pressure on Syria mounting to curtail military activity, militant groups have been careful not to embarrass their hosts in Damascus. While many militant leaders remain in Syria, they issue most of their statements from Lebanon.

Syria has repeatedly denied accusations it allows militants to train on its territory. The Syrian government says it once allowed militants to run media offices from Damascus, but those were closed after a visit by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell in May 2003.

On Oct. 5, 2003, Israel bombed what it said was an Islamic Jihad training camp in Syria after the group carried out a suicide bombing at a Haifa cafe that killed 19 Israelis. Syria said at the time the base had been long abandoned.

With relations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership warming in recent months, Israel has stepped up its accusations against Syria. Israel blamed a Feb. 25 suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed five people on Islamic Jihad militants following orders from their leaders in Damascus and said it held Syria responsible.

Israeli officials say Syria continues to be a hub for Palestinian militants.

"There is ongoing intelligence information that the terrorist groups working out of Syria are directly responsible for suicide bombings in Israel and continue to function and operate with the facilitation of the government in Syria," said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev. "We see today a growing understanding in the international community of the Syrian regime's collaboration with terrorist groups."

During a more than two-hour interview, Mattar gave a detailed description of what he said was his training in Syria. His account could not be verified independently.

Though he spoke in the presence of Israeli security officials at the Shikma prison in Ashkelon, Mattar appeared relaxed and seemed to be speaking freely. Occasionally, he glanced at a security official for permission to answer, which was often granted with a casual nod.

Security officials said Mattar has not been charged, and he has not been accused of carrying out attacks.

Asked why he agreed to the interview, Mattar, who spoke mostly in Arabic, said in English, "I have no choice." When pressed, he said in Arabic he had not been forced to do the interview, but did not elaborate on his motive.

Mattar said he had been recruited by Hamas more than two years ago at his mosque in the Jebaliya refugee camp, a militant area in northern Gaza that has been the frequent target of Israeli raids over the past four years.

Last year, he was asked to go to Syria for training, with the intention of training other militants in Gaza.

Mattar left Gaza on Dec. 4, telling Israeli border guards he was going to study at Damascus University, which he had previously attended.

He re-enrolled in the university to maintain his cover and waited 25 days for Hamas to contact him, he said. He then received five days of training in personal safety.

He was taught what car to drive - not a Subaru, known as the militants' preferred car. Where to live - not in an isolated house, which can easily be targeted by an Israeli missile. How to keep his cell phone secure - regularly change the phone, the phone number and even the battery, he said.

After that, he was given a rendezvous point and driven to the Hamas training base 40 minutes outside the capital.

Nearly every day, he was taken to the base for five hours of training by nine instructors in everything from electronics to weapons.

He gave only vague descriptions of the base, saying it was in a valley and appeared old and well-established. It contained a garage, several buildings, watchtowers and a tunnel, he said.

Mattar - who said he was the only militant being trained at the time - was taught to read maps and use a compass, to build an electric timer for a time bomb and how to use light weapons. He fired rocket-propelled grenades and threw hand grenades, he said.

One day, his trainers told him to hide, he said.

"Syrian intelligence came in, took a look around and left," he said.

No one else hid, and he assumed the militants did not want the Syrian government to know they were training a Palestinian from Gaza.

In February, Mattar told his trainers he wanted to go home and they agreed.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; Israel; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: hamas; hesdeadmeat; ifreturnedtogaza; recruit; syria; trained

1 posted on 03/29/2005 3:07:48 PM PST by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge

AP Photo/BRENNAN LINSLEY

Jailed Palestinian militant Osama Mattar sits inside a room normally used by prison workers, during an interview with the Associated Press, at Ashkelon Prison, Ashkelon, Israel, Tuesday, March 29, 2005. Mattar, who was arrested about one month earlier, was recruited from his local mosque in Gaza by Hamas militants and sent for weeks of extensive military training in a camp just outside Damascus, Syria, the 20-year-old said in a jailhouse interview Tuesday.


2 posted on 03/29/2005 3:08:48 PM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ...... The War on Terrorism is the ultimate 'faith-based' initiative.)
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To: NormsRevenge

Um... We know.


3 posted on 03/29/2005 3:09:06 PM PST by nuffsenuff
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To: NormsRevenge

"Jailed Palestinian militant Osama...."

That's enough for me right there. Ice the sucker.


4 posted on 03/29/2005 3:38:54 PM PST by adam_az (UN out of the US! - http://www.moveamericaforward.org/?Page=Petition)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Yehuda; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; ...
If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

Can't train them in Iraq or Afghanistan any more. Not to worry, the Gaza training facilities will be up and running soon.

5 posted on 03/29/2005 3:42:42 PM PST by SJackson (Be careful -- with quotations, you can damn anything, Andre Malraux)
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To: NormsRevenge
A 20-year-old Palestinian recruited from a mosque in Gaza by Hamas militants told The Associated Press in a jailhouse interview Tuesday that he received weeks of military training in a Hamas camp in Syria this year.

Where's "Captain Obvious" when you need him?

6 posted on 03/29/2005 3:43:45 PM PST by ScreamingFist (Peace through Ignorance)
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To: NormsRevenge

"Subaru, known as the militants' preferred car"

My subaru is just a tad under 250,000 miles...very durable...LOL


7 posted on 03/29/2005 3:51:23 PM PST by MD_Willington_1976
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To: NormsRevenge

"... and those who harbor them ...."


8 posted on 03/29/2005 3:59:33 PM PST by GOP_1900AD (Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Take Back The GOP!)
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To: NormsRevenge
With the comment from this captured terrorist admitting he had extensive military training in a camp just outside Damascus, Syria.. is simply more reason the Assad regimé must fall.
9 posted on 03/29/2005 4:36:29 PM PST by M. Espinola (Freedom is never free!)
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To: MD_Willington_1976

Mine just turned over 175,000. Bought it used - I'm gonna check under the seats for bombs tonight...


10 posted on 03/29/2005 4:39:18 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: NormsRevenge
Nothing really new about that sort of thing. There was a guy in my classes at the University, and this was in the early '70s, who was from Lebanon, but who had served in the Syrian Air Force. Boy did he get "agitated" about the '67 war. FYI, the Israelis preempted and caught the Syrian and Egyptian Air Forces on the ground. Actually the United Arab Republic Air Force, since at that point the Egyptians and Syrians were in a short lived merger. He claimed the Israelis knew the Syrians would party hearty the night before and would be slow to respond, which they were. My attitude to that was and is "so who's fault is that?". Don't mass your forces to attack your neighbor, and then let your pilots be hung over during the period leading up to that attack.
11 posted on 03/29/2005 4:55:39 PM PST by El Gato (Activist Judges can twist the Constitution into anything they want ... or so they think.)
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To: Billthedrill

...LOL...

No RPK or RPG in my subi...although it did come with a 6 pack of "mike's hard lemonade in the trunk"...


12 posted on 03/29/2005 4:57:28 PM PST by MD_Willington_1976
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To: NormsRevenge
Mattar said he had been recruited by Hamas more than two years ago at his mosque in the Jebaliya refugee camp, a militant area in northern Gaza that has been the frequent target of Israeli raids over the past four years.

Where his grandparents probably relocated to as urged by the surrounding Arab states during their attempt to push the Jews into the sea. The Arabs living in what is now Israel were urged to flee, with promisses of some of the Jewish land when that pushing into the sea was accomplished. The Jews urged them to stay. Their grandchildren are still waiting to return and get all that improved property of the Jews.

13 posted on 03/29/2005 5:04:03 PM PST by El Gato (Activist Judges can twist the Constitution into anything they want ... or so they think.)
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To: NormsRevenge
Assad is getting backed into a corner:

In other news:

Syria vows full Lebanon pullout

14 posted on 03/29/2005 5:48:48 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (This tagline no longer operative....floated away in the flood of 2005 ,)
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To: NormsRevenge

What???!!!???

Hamas trains genocidal muslim killers in Syria???!!!???

Shocking!

BREAKING NEWS FROM SARAH_F:

Oxygen in atmosphere, repeat, oxygen in atmosphere.
Tomorrow expected to be the day after today.
The sun rose yesterday.
Forks will still work next week just as they do today.

SARAH_F BREAKING NEWS - OUT.


15 posted on 03/29/2005 6:16:06 PM PST by sarah_f ( Know Islam, Know Terror.)
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To: adam_az

>>>That's enough for me right there. Ice the sucker.

no, send 'em to Pinnelas county Florida where they'll lock him away without food & water...


16 posted on 03/29/2005 6:18:39 PM PST by Keith in Iowa (Michael Schiavo = Scott Peterson - 1 boat.)
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To: IAF ThunderPilot

Ping!

Syria has been a major hub for terrorists since at least the 1950s if not earlier!


17 posted on 03/30/2005 8:07:05 AM PST by Convert from ECUSA (tired of all the shucking and jiving)
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