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A Hostage Affair in Gaza is Ended by a Three-Part Ransom (Centanni and Wiig's kidnapper identified)
DEBKAfile ^ | 8-27-06

Posted on 08/27/2006 6:45:59 AM PDT by jdm

On the face of it, conversion to Islam would appear to provide a painless escape device for any hostage who happens to fall into fundamentalist terrorist hands. After all, once free, the hostage can always revert to his real faith or non-faith. It is hard to blame the two Fox News journalists, the American Steve Centanni, 60, and the New Zealander, Olaf Wiig, 36, for taking that path on to buy their way out of an uncertain fate at the hands of Palestinian terrorists – especially as they later reported they were forced to make the gesture at gunpoint.

And, indeed the two journalists were released from 13 days of captivity in Gaza three hours after announcing their conversion on a new videotape released by the kidnappers in Gaza.

Relief over the two journalists’ coming safely out of their ordeal is quite apart from considerations of the consequences for the war on terrorism. It must be said that the Palestinian kidnappers also walked away without suffering any harm and can keep on snatching victims without fear – exactly as the same terrorist gang got away with murdering three Americans in Gaza in 2003. In fact, the prime minister Ismail Haniya, who belongs to an Islamist terror group, was allowed to take credit for the release after winning a face saver in the form of the conversions and an anti-American diatribe.

Some further points are worth considering:

1. Shortly after Centanni and Wiig were snatched by masked gunmen in Gaza on Aug. 14, the various intelligence agencies operating in Gaza knew who the kidnapper was: the Palestinian warlord Zakaria Dughmush, who had been hired by the same Hamas group which on June 25 kidnapped and - is still holding - the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit.

Dughmush is a former follower of the late Jemal Semhadana, head of the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees who was killed in Rafah by rockets fired from an Israeli warplane on June 8, 2006. Semhadana was the first Palestinian terrorist to attack Americans. He staged the bombing attack of October 15, 2003 on a US embassy convoy from Tel Aviv as it drove past Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. Three American security officers died in that attack.

After Semhadana’s death, his PRC fragmented into several small militias, one of them led by Dughmush, a fundamentalist freelance terrorist, who set up base in Gaza City. He was adopted by Hamas, but also draws funds and weapons from al Qaeda and Hizballah elements working together in the Gaza Strip.

The efforts of the Hamas abductors of Shalit to negotiate a prisoner swap broke down. Hamas ended up refusing the quid pro quo of a promise by Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, already deposited with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, to release 600 Palestinian prisoners. The abductors held out for a simultaneous trade and then withdrew from the talks.

Then, when pressure built up to end the episode which was embarrassing Haniya, Mahmoud Abbas and others, they contracted Dughmush to stage a more spectacular abduction operation. He chose the two American Fox New journalists as his prey.

2. Although the foreign intelligence agencies with a presence in Gaza knew where the Fox reporters were being held, neither the Americans, the Israelis nor the British – the senior US ally in the war on terror – were willing to go in and recover them by force, or even lay hands on Dughmush and his gunmen.

In the final reckoning, the Palestinians were granted a face-saver – the Hamas prime minister in particular, who is using the release of the American and the New Zealander to whitewash his organization, without freeing the Israeli soldier.

3. Various Palestinian middlemen were used by British agents at the request of the US to bring the Fox journalists home. They worked out a convoluted deal which entailed their public conversion to Islam, an anti-American harangue on air and a six-figure cash ransom paid under the table to Dughmush to fund his terrorist militia’s operations in Gaza. While the first two parts of the ransom were publicly aired, the third part will no doubt be vehemently denied. But the face remains that a terrorist chief who freelances for at least three fundamentalist terrorist organizations walks free with a strong incentive to develop his profitable hostage-taking business.

4. For Israel, the fate of Gilead Shalit, whom Hamas kidnapped from sovereign Israel in a cross-border assault, is left up in the air. Israel did not link him to the two Fox journalists; Hamas did. The Americans, the New Zealanders and the British worked fast to separate the two abduction episodes. Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, who says he does not sleep at night for worrying about Shalit and the two Israelis in Hizballah hands, did not take advantage of the subsequent abductions of Centanni and Wiig to have him included in the package for their release. He must have known that the two journalists would not have been released without the say-so of the Hamas group holding the Israeli soldier. This was a card Olmert did not play.

All that remains to be found out now about this shabby episode is the size of the rake-off the Palestinian warlord Dughmush has handed over from his ransom to Shalit’s Hamas abductors.


TOPICS: Editorial; Israel; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: centanni; dughmush; fnc; fox; gaza; hostages; israel; olaf; olafwiig; ransom; shalit; steve; stevecentanni; wiig
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the various intelligence agencies operating in Gaza knew who the kidnapper was: the Palestinian warlord Zakaria Dughmush, who had been hired by the same Hamas group which on June 25 kidnapped and - is still holding - the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit.

Yeah, it's DEBKAfile...

1 posted on 08/27/2006 6:46:01 AM PDT by jdm
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To: jdm
Only Steve and Olaf know if this is the guy:

Zakaria Dughmush

2 posted on 08/27/2006 6:47:48 AM PDT by jdm (I gotta give the Helen Thomas obsession a rest.)
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To: jdm

ISLAM = the official "religion" for scumbags and murderers!


3 posted on 08/27/2006 6:53:14 AM PDT by observer5 (It's not a War on Terror - it's a WAR ON STUPIDITY)
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To: jdm

Don't forget that Islam is a one-way trapdoor. Anyone who leaves Islam is subject to death.


4 posted on 08/27/2006 6:58:15 AM PDT by AZLiberty (Creating the <a href="http://clinton.senate.gov">straddle</a> Google bomb one post at a time.)
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To: jdm
I have often considered what I would do if I were kidnapped and forced to claim conversion to Islam with a knife at my throat.

The correct and courageous path would be to refuse, to invite my killers to accept Christ and to show strength in my final moments.

As much as I would like to think that is what I would do, I am not sure that I would be up to the task. The horror of the moment might be too great. Would I ever actually convert? No way in hell. Would I mouth empty words to avoid the horror and live to see my family? Perhaps, flesh is weak. If they made me do that, I would vow on the spot to make their meeting with Allah my prime directive from that moment onward. A dish served cold, perhaps. I know, not a very Christian thought.

5 posted on 08/27/2006 6:59:47 AM PDT by Sender (“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”)
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To: jdm

It is clear now that this was an entirely staged event by Hamas. Hamas had him kidnapped, so that they could be the ones to 'win' his release, and show the world what great people they are. What a farce. It shows how insane Hamas is.


6 posted on 08/27/2006 6:59:56 AM PDT by ritewingwarrior (Where does free speech end, and sedition begin?)
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To: jdm

The whole area should now be destroyed as punishment and as a deterent. We need to send a strong message to the rest of the world. Hostages will not be tollerated. This is something Reagan should have done to Iran after the hostages were released back then.


7 posted on 08/27/2006 7:00:01 AM PDT by uptoolate (The U.N. will be the tool of the Anti-Christ)
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To: observer5

Didn't they really get released due to the efforts of Jesse "spreadin my seed" Jackson? He had poked his ignorant nose in this affair earlier and it figures that he will get some credit. sarc.


8 posted on 08/27/2006 7:02:10 AM PDT by shankbear
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To: jdm

Every article states Wiig works for FNC. Yet, when his captured ID was shown on TV, it said:"Freelancer". So, while he was working w/Centanni, it may be that he is not directly employed by FNC.

Any journos out there who can explain how this works?


9 posted on 08/27/2006 7:02:45 AM PDT by reformedliberal ("Eliminate the mullahs and Islam shall disappear in fifty years." Ayatollah Khomeini)
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To: All
Well, maybe in the 21st century, or this year, anyway...

Semhadana was the first Palestinian terrorist to attack Americans.

10 posted on 08/27/2006 7:02:49 AM PDT by Ready4Freddy (Sophomore dies in kiln explosion? Oh My God! I just talked to her last week...)
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To: jdm
Glad they are safe, but what "story" is there to chase in a terrorist hive?

Why do reporters pretend that there is some new news to report about the Pals?

For 30 years they have been "reporting" the same news, ie, the Pals commit suicide and murder because the evil Jews are oppressing them and they want the Jews pushed out to sea.
11 posted on 08/27/2006 7:03:31 AM PDT by roses of sharon
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To: Sender

Our dear brother Stephen was not able to face death at the hands of the Pharisees. God gives grace in those times to those who love Him. In the flesh, impossible. In the Spirit, possible.


12 posted on 08/27/2006 7:06:24 AM PDT by uptoolate (The U.N. will be the tool of the Anti-Christ)
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To: ritewingwarrior
I said that in the beginning, the Pals knew where they were, and so did Hamas.

Why do "journalists" continually believe terrorists? And give them the benefit of the doubt?

I see NO SUCH RESPECT FOR OUR OWN COUNTY'S STATEMENTS, and I see no such respect for the US President or its people, by these so-called journalists.
13 posted on 08/27/2006 7:06:55 AM PDT by roses of sharon
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To: uptoolate
Our dear brother Stephen was not able to face death at the hands of the Pharisees.

He did face death, and his last words were proclaiming his faith:

"You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always oppose the Holy Spirit; you are just like your ancestors. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They put to death those who foretold the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it."

This doesn't sound like an "I love allah" moment, or anything other than a proclamation of his faith before they stoned him to death.

Can you extrapolate a bit?

14 posted on 08/27/2006 7:41:55 AM PDT by Recovering Hermit (Apparently, most who protest for peace do so at the expense of hygiene.)
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To: jdm

I bow to no religion that threatens me death at gunpoint.

I hope the reporter renounces Islam defialnly. Although he may never be able to cover news in the Mid East again.
Because it is also a death sentence to convert from Islam to another religion.

Another good example of the religion of peace and understanding.


15 posted on 08/27/2006 8:22:17 AM PDT by o_zarkman44 (ELECT SOME WORKERS AND REMOVE THE JERKERS!.)
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To: o_zarkman44

defiantly....er


16 posted on 08/27/2006 8:25:01 AM PDT by o_zarkman44 (ELECT SOME WORKERS AND REMOVE THE JERKERS!.)
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To: observer5; SortaBichy
ISLAM =

Insane...
Sanity
Lacking...
Allah
Mohammed

17 posted on 08/27/2006 8:29:41 AM PDT by ErnBatavia (Meep Meep)
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To: o_zarkman44

"I hope the reporter renounces islam defiantly"

Doesn't sound like that's the case. The only thing I remembered hearing was about the "stories" the paiis have and should be made known.


18 posted on 08/27/2006 8:31:04 AM PDT by freeangel ( (free speech is only good until someone else doesn't like what you say))
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To: Sender
"The correct and courageous path would be to refuse, to invite my killers to accept Christ and to show strength in my final moments."

I dont' believe that. I’m sure God’s no more fooled by their phony gunpoint “conversion” to Islam than you’d be fooled a supermodel's gunpoint expressions of love for you.

19 posted on 08/27/2006 8:44:51 AM PDT by elfman2 (An army of amateurs doing the media's job.)
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To: ritewingwarrior
"It shows how insane Hamas is."

No, it shows how insane the WORLD is, cuz they fall for it, time after time.

20 posted on 08/27/2006 8:46:35 AM PDT by jackibutterfly (.)
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