Car Bomb in Lebanon Kills Son of Palestinian Guerrilla Leader

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - A bomb placed under the driver's seat of a car exploded Monday, killing Jihad Jibril, the son of radical Palestinian guerrilla leader Ahmed Jibril and a senior military chief of a group the United States lists as terrorist.

The Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command blamed Israel and vowed to retaliate. The PLO faction, which has long opposed the Israel-Palestinian peace process and is on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations, has focused its efforts on attacking Israel from bases in Lebanon in recent years.

Jihad Jibril, 38, who commanded the group's military operations in Lebanon, was driving his Peugeot sedan down a street off the busy Corniche Mazraa in west Beirut when the bomb detonated at midday, Lebanese police said.

The blast wrecked the car, blew a hole in the street and scattered bits of Jihad's body for several yards.

A police officer at the scene said a bomb of high-explosive plastic had been placed under the driver's seat. It was not known how the bomb was detonated.

Prosecutor-General Adnan Addoum said Jihad Jibril's body was identified by relatives and friends.

In Damascus, the Syrian capital, a somber Ahmed Jibril said he would not be daunted by the assassination of his son.

"He is just like the other martyrs falling on the land of Palestine," Jibril said as he received condolences from scores of supporters. "We will stay the course of martyrs until victory and the achievement of our goals."

Asked who was responsible for the assassination, Talal Naji, an aide to Ahmed Jibril, said: "Israel alone."

"Not everything that blows up in Beirut has to be connected to us," Ben-Eliezer told Israeli television.

Although other militant groups had eclipsed the Damascus-based PFLP-GC in the past decade, it continued to threaten Israel from Lebanon. Israeli fighter-bombers frequently struck its mountain base at Naameh, south of Beirut, until Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000.

Last year, the Israeli navy intercepted a PFLP-GC shipment of arms from Lebanon to the Palestinians. In April, the group fired rockets across the Lebanese border into Israel, provoking the Lebanese government to arrest nine alleged members.

"The response for the assassination will be on the same scale, but the time and circumstances will decide the nature of the operation and its timing," Shehabi said in Damascus. "He was targeted because he was the son of Ahmed Jibril. He was a target of America and Israel because of his marks on the (Palestinian) struggle in Lebanon and the occupied territories."

Jihad Jibril had taken military courses in Libya and had the rank of a lieutenant colonel.

PFLP-GC officials said his body would be transported to Damascus for a funeral Wednesday.

Founded as an offshoot of the PFLP in 1968, the PFLP-GC quickly gained a reputation for some of the wilder attacks against Israel. It hijacked an El Al jetliner in 1968 and machine gunned another at Zurich airport in 1969. In 1970, it planted a time-bomb on a Swissair jet that blew up on a flight from Zurich to Tel Aviv, killing all 47 on aboard.

During Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the PFLP-GC captured three Israeli soldiers. It hung on to them until Israel agreed to hand over more than 1,100 Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian prisoners in 1985.

In a daring raid, a PFLP-GC guerrilla in a hang-glider flew from Lebanon into northern Israel in 1987 and killed six soldiers before being shot dead.

The PFLP-GC has been at odds for decades with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the PLO mainstream. It rejects any peace deal with Israel and does not recognize the Jewish state.

Car bombings were often used during the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war for settling scores among the various warring groups. But they have become rare since the government restored its authority in the years after the war.

However, in January a car bomb killed Elie Hobeika, a former Cabinet minister and ex-militia leader, and three bodyguards. *story by Sam F. Ghattas

From Haaretz News Flash:

22:05

The Lebanese Nationalists Movement takes responsibility for assassination of Jihad Jibril in Lebanon


Monday, May 20, 2002 Sivan 9, 5762	Israel Time: if (!document.layers)document.write('') 23:37 (GMT+3)

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Last update - 23:25 20/05/2002

Unkown group takes responsibility for Jibril assassination

By Daniel Sobelman, Ha'aretz Correspondent and agencies


	Jihad Jibril, who was killed in a car-bomb explosion in Beirut Monday. (Photo: AP)

A hitherto unkown group, the Lebanese Nationalists Movement, has taken responsiblity for the assassination of Jihad Jibril in Beirut on Monday. Jihad Jibril was the son of Ahmed Jibril, general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

In a statement sent to the press, the group claimed that it had killed Jibril because of the fact that PFLP-GC was operating on Lebanese ground at the behest of Syria.

However, earlier in the day, Ahmed Jibril said that Israeli intelligence was behind a car bomb that killed his son, Jihad, in Beirut. An aide to Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer denied "any connection" to the attack.

"The Mossad managed to kill Jihad this time," Jibril told reporters, referring to Israeli intelligence. "The Israeli enemy knows he was a serious field commander. He became a martyr like so many who have fallen defending the Palestinian cause."

"We see the clear fingerprints of the Zionists in this assassination which... signals a return to renewed Zionist attempts to shake the security of Lebanon," a statement from Lebanon's Syrian-backed Hizbollah guerrilla organisation said.

"Israel is behind any bomb attack on any Lebanese, Arab or
Palestinian," Abu Rushdi, a local PFLP-GC official told Reuters shortly after the blast. "Our response is to continue our struggle against Israel."

Jerusalem denies involvement
In Jerusalem, Yarden Vatikay, an aide to Ben-Eliezer said, "Israel had no connection to [the car bomb]," adding that the defense minister had also denied any link. "As usual, they blame Israel."

Al-Manar, the television station of the Hezbollah guerrilla group which has close links to Jibril's PFLP-GC, said Jibril's son, 40-year-old Jihad, died in the explosion. It said it had received the confirmation from Jibril's headquarters in Damascus, Syria.

A senior PFLP-GC commander suspected of involvement in the assassination was arrested in Beirut, the Al-Jazeera television station reported Monday afternoon. In addition, Lebanese police said that they had arrested three suspects.

Contacted by The Associated Press, Ahmed Jibril's PFLP-GC headquarters in Damascus would not immediately discuss what had happened, but several members privately confirmed Jihad Jibril had been killed.

When asked who was responsible for the assassination, Talal Naji, an aide to Ahmed Jibril, said only: "Israel alone." Another aide pledged to retaliate.

Jihad Jibril was head of military operations for the guerrilla group established by his father in 1968. His mother, Um Jihad, reached by telephone in her Damascus home was weeping and, asked if it was true, said "We are not sure yet."

The blast occurred at midday on a street off the busy shopping area of Corniche Mazraa. Lebanese police officials said the explosion was caused by a bomb placed under the driver's seat of the Peugeot sedan.

Jibril's PFLP-GC is one of the radical Palestinian groups opposed to the peace process, and has close ties to the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon.

Once famed for its guerrilla operations, it has been largely on the sidelines of the Palestinian uprising against Israel that erupted in 2000, but had claimed responsibility for a shipment of weapons aboard the ship Santorini Israel intercepted en route to the West Bank in May of last year.

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