Posted on 09/11/2001 12:24:05 PM PDT by camrad
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Two radical Palestinian guerrilla groups said they had nothing to do with the devastating attacks on key U.S. buildings Tuesday.
Two hijacked passenger jets destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and a third crashed at the Pentagon (news - web sites) in Washington.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) told Reuters they were not involved in attacks on the U.S.
They said they were limiting their military operations against Israel to attacks inside the Israeli-occupied territories.
``Naturally the United States' position regarding our conflict with Israel is totally biased in favor of Israel, but we have nothing to do with these aircraft attacks in the U.S. because our military battle is against the Zionist enemy,'' Maher al-Taher, a PFLP politburo member, said.
``We, as nationalist Palestinian forces, are launching our struggle on our land against the Zionist aggression.''
Taher denied a report on Aug. 29 that his group was planning attacks against the U.S. following the killing of the PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa in an Israeli missile attack on his office in the West Bank.
Shortly after two planes smashed into the World Trade Center an anonymous caller told Abu Dhabi television the DFLP was behind the attack. But a DFLP official denied the group had any connection to the crashes.
Ali Badwan, a member of the central committee of the DFLP told Reuters his group was against any attacks on civilians.
``Our policy calls for focusing the Palestinian efforts against the Israeli occupation forces and the armed Zionist settlers,'' he said.
``We are not concerned with any actions outside the Palestinian territories. Our legitimate struggle is directed against the Israeli enemy and the settler cliques,'' he said.
The PFLP and DFLP are grouped under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization (news - web sites) (PLO). Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) earlier condemned the attacks.
Article says they are not. Mistyped headline, or did I miss something?
More and more I admire Israel for the way they handle these cowardly scum.
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