Israeli cop slain while giving first aid to Pallie attacker [my headline, scroll down]

Three Israeli children were wounded when Kassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed near a house in the Negev development town of Sderot late Tuesday afternoon.

A one-year-old baby was moderately wounded annd two other children suffered light injuries. Magen David Adom said that the three were being treated at Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva.

Police said that two or three rockets landed in Sderot - one next to the home and another in an open field. They were searching for a third rocket.

Five Israelis killed in morning of terror attacks
Five Israelis were killed and 20 others injured in three separate attacks Tuesday morning in Tel Aviv, Afula and the Tunnel Road which connects the Gush Etzion bloc of West Bank settlements with Jerusalem.

The first attack happened in Tel Aviv around 2.15 A.M. when a Palestinian gunman opened fire with an M-16 assault rifle from the Ma'ariv bridge on the Seafood Market restaurant and the next door Mifgash Hasteak steakhouse on Derekh Menachem Begin (formally Derekh Petah Tikva), a main Tel Aviv artery.

The police said that the Palestinian did not enter the restaurants, but at one stage, ran toward the restaurants, still firing his weapon. He then pulled out a knife, and began stabbing passers-by, killing three.

The Palestinian was shot dead by a police officer and a client at one of the restaurants. The military wing of the Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction took responsibility for the attack.

Among the dead is the police officer who shot the gunman. Salim Barakat from the Galilee village of Yarka, and a father to a three-year-old girl, served with the Yarkon Police.

Barakat was killed during a struggle with the gunman. He apparently shot the Palestinian, and was leaning over him to administer first-aid when the terrorist stabbed him. A civilian then shot the Palestinian in his head.

There are reports that people at the scene of the attack mistook Barakat, who was not in uniform, for the terrorist, and beat him.

Barakat will be laid to rest Tuesday at 3 P.M. in the Yarka cemetery.

A second victim was identified as Yosef Haybi, 52, from Netanya and the third as Eli Dahan, 53, from Lod. Their funeral times are not yet known.

Two hand grenades were discovered in the area, which the terrorist apparently threw at the restaurants. Police sappers neutralized them.

One person sustained head injuries in the attack and was said to be in a serious condition, three others were suffering from moderate injuries, while 11 were lightly wounded and five others were treated for shock.

The Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade took responsibility for the attack, saying that it was in response to Monday's killing of 16 Palestinians, including the wife of a Hamas activist and their three children, killed by an IDF tank shell fired on two cars in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

In a call to Reuters, the Al Aqsa Martryrs' Brigade said the attack came "in retaliation for the massacre of the women and children in Ramallah and the massacres in Jenin."

The gunman was identified as Ibrahim Hassouna, 20, a resident of the Balata refugee camp near Nablus.

The Sea Food Market restaurant holds a song and dance evening every Monday night, and the restaurant was packed with people, including Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Tel Aviv soccer players. A bridal shower was also being held at the restaurant.

Woman killed in shooting attack on Tunnel Road
A woman was killed and her husband was lightly injured when gunmen opened fire on their car Tuesday morning on the Tunnel Road connecting the Gush Etzion block of settlements in the West Bank to Jerusalem.

The attack on the Tunnel Road took place near the village of Al Khader, west of Bethlehem. The woman, Devora Friedman, 46, a resident of the nearby settlement of Efrat, was critically injured in the attack, and later died of her wounds. Her husband, Yona, was moderately injured after being shot in his thigh. He was taken to Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital for treatment.

A gun battle between police officers and the Palestinian gunmen raged for a number of minutes, until the gunmen managed to escape.

Channel One TV reporter Benny Lis was lightly wounded in a shooting attack while traveling down the same road later Tuesday, on his way to cover the attack on the Friedmans.

One man dies in suicide bomb attack on Afula bus
Around 8.30 A.M. Tuesday morning, a suicide bomber blew himself up on an almost empty bus in Afula's central bus station, killing one.

The man aroused the driver's suspicions when he paid with an NIS 50 bill and refused to take his change. A group of 30 Israeli Arab students had got off the bus just once stop before. There were just ten people on the bus 823 from Upper Nazareth to Tel Aviv when it exploded.

Eighteen people were taken to the Haemek hospital in the northern town. Three were moderately injured and the rest were said to be suffering from shock.

Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the attack, naming the bomber as 21-year-old Abdul-Karim Isa Tahayna from Jenin, and was also in response to Monday's attack on Ramallah.

Police had set up roadblocks around Afula earlier Tuesday, following specific warnings of terror attacks, and are now investigating where the Palestinian got on the bus.

Bomb explodes at Arab school in East Jerusalem
Also Tuesday morning, a bomb exploded in the yard of a Palestinian school in Zur Bachar, a village on the eastern edge of Jerusalem. Eight people were injured in the attack; a teacher was moderately hurt and seven children lightly injured.

An unknown of Jewish group took responsibility for the attack, saying that it was in retaliation for the recent Palestinian attacks.

The school's 600 students were evacuated from the site and police searched the area for additional devices.

Approximately an hour following the explosion, Arabs demonstrated by the school, throwing stones at police forces. Police responded by firing stun grenades and tear gas, dispersing the protestors.

Police arrest suspected terror cell in Taibeh
Police arrested three Palestinians from the Nablus area in the Israeli Arab town of Taibeh in the north Tuesday. A fourth member of the cell was caught a few hours later close to the Green Line following a police search of the area.

Police had received information on a possible infiltration by a terror cell in the triangle area, Israel Radio reported.

Police and Border Guards have beefed-up forces in the Samaria and Wadi Ara areas, setting up roadblocks around Petach Tikva, Kfar Sava, Netanya, Hadera, and Afula following warnings of possible terror attacks.Police and Border Guards have beefed-up forces in the Samaria and Wadi Ara areas, setting up roadblocks around Petach Tikva, Kfar Sava, Netanya, Hadera, and Afula following warnings of possible terror attacks.

Here's what another Muslim psycho killer did to a captor>>>>

Prosecution completes death penalty case against Tanzania bomber
Mohamed's cell mate at the time, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, is charged with attempted murder for stabbing Pepe in the eye with a sharpened plastic comb. Prosecutors described Mohamed as Salim's accomplice in the assault and what they portrayed as a hostage-taking and escape plan.

June 26, 2001 Posted: 12:15 PM EDT (1615 GMT)


Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a cell mate of Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, allegedly sharpened this comb into a homemade knife

From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN Producer

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Federal prosecutors asking a jury to impose a death sentence on convicted embassy bomber Khalfan Khamis Mohamed rested their case Monday.

Prosecutors ended with medical testimony about the condition of the jail guard whose assault, they allege, is proof that Mohamed would continue to pose a danger even in jail, one of the government's justifications for seeking capital punishment.

The government spent two and half days covering the November 1, 2000, stabbing of corrections officer Louis Pepe on the highest security floor of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the federal jail in New York City that adjoins the courthouse.

Mohamed's cell mate at the time, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, is charged with attempted murder for stabbing Pepe in the eye with a sharpened plastic comb. Prosecutors described Mohamed as Salim's accomplice in the assault and what they portrayed as a hostage-taking and escape plan.

Mohamed's continued risk to others, even behind bars, is one of the factors prosecutors are arguing as they ask the jury to consider in its deliberations. Another is the impact on relatives of the 11 people killed and on the 85 injured in the August 7, 1998, bombing of the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Ten victims from Tanzania testified in one day before the jury last week.

The same jurors considering Mohamed's sentence found him guilty on May 29 of participating in the Tanzania bombing and a worldwide conspiracy led by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden to kill Americans and destroy U.S. property. The jury also convicted two men in the coordinated, more lethal Kenya embassy bombing and a fourth man in the overall terror conspiracy.

No witnesses to attack on guard

Dr. Maxim Koslow, a neurosurgeon who operated on Pepe, told the jury Monday that the makeshift knife plunged two and half inches into the guard's skull. Koslow said Pepe's permanent disabilities include loss of his left eye and brain damage that resulted in a 50 percent vision loss in his right eye, partial paralysis of his right arm, and severe language difficulties, both speaking and writing.

No one saw the attack -- except Pepe, who is unable to testify -- and no videotape of it exists, despite cameras pointed at the jail unit's cells and hallways 24 hours a day. Jail officials said their recording device malfunctioned but has since been repaired.

The comb and a filed-down brush that also was wielded in the attack were purchased in the jail commissary, according to receipts found in Salim and Mohamed's cell. Only Salim bought the combs. The jail no longer sells these items to inmates, according to MCC spokesman Robert Brooks.

FBI forensic examiner Samuel Baechtel told the jury that sweatpants and T-shirt worn by Mohamed that day bore stains of officer Pepe's blood, according to DNA tests.

Baechtel testified that Mohamed's blood was found only in one place, in a corridor down the hall from the cell where investigators believe the stabbing occurred.

Defense attorneys begin case Tuesday


Mohamed

Mohamed's attorneys will begin their case Tuesday seeking to persuade the jury of a dozen "mitigating factors" to oppose his execution.

Mohamed's mother and siblings will testify that his execution would cause them to suffer grief and loss, and a psychiatrist is expected to testify that Mohamed does feel remorse for his actions.

Mohamed's defense will further argue that his execution would merely make him a martyr and be used to justify future terrorist attacks.

If the jury cannot vote unanimously for the death penalty, then U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand will impose a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release.

That is the verdict the jury returned in the death penalty phase against convicted Kenya embassy bomber Mohamed al-'Owhali, the only other one among the four defendants for whom prosecutors asked the death penalty.

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