BIN LADEN'S PALESTINIANS
The Al-Qaeda network in Lebanon and Palestinian Authority
The Elite of Al-Qaeda in Lebanon - Munir Maqda with cellular phone at right,
Ahmad as-Saavi, with Kalashnikov rifle at left, in Ain-al-Hilwe refugees camp.
Imad Fayez Mugnie - the link.
Mugnie - from left: photo from "al-Nahar" Lebanon newspaper,
from right: from list of terrorists searched by FBI, "armed and very dangerous".
One of the most dangerous terrorists in the world, the "head of special security department" and "commander of international operations" of the Hizballa, Imad Mugnie, is responsible for several terrorist attacks against USA and Israel, hijacking of airplanes and kidnapping of Israeli and American citizens.
Mugnie started his career in the 70-s, in the Fatah (Arafat's organization, which is part of the PLO), though he himself is not a Palestinian. Soon he moved to Arafat's personal guard, the "Force 17". When Arafat and the PLO were banished from Lebanon by the Israeli army in 1982, Imad together with his brothers Fuad and Jihad (both of whom were killed later during American and Israeli special forces operations) became one of the Hizballa founders.
Mugnie participated in preparation and carrying out of many terrorist attacks, including...
- The explosion in the American embassy in Beirut in 1983 (63 killed), a suicide bomber attack on the US Navy and French paratroopers barracks in Beirut (242 marines and 58 paratroopers killed).
- Second explosion in the American embassy.
- Kidnapping and murder of William Berkley, the CIA resident in Lebanon.
- Murder of the Marine Colonel William Higgins.
- Miscellanious attacks on US and Israeli citizens, resulting in 20 people being killed.
- Explosion in the Israeli embassy in Argentina at in 1992 (29 people killed)
- An explosion in the Jewish Culture Center in Buenos Aires at 18 of July 1994 (88 people killed).
Besides those, participation of Mugnie in planning of explosions in the American army barracks in Saudi Arabia and in American embassies in Africa in 1998 is quite probable. His indirect participation in planning of 11 September terrorist attacks is also possible.
The first contacts between Mugnie and Bin-Laden took place about 7 years ago. One of the al-Qaeda activists, Ali Mohammad, a confidant of Bin-Laden, said at the court that he had organized the meeting between Bin-Laden and Imad Mugnie in 1993 in Sudan. Ali Mohammad was later sentenced to life in prison by the US court for participation in planning of two explosions in American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Osama Bin-Laden was greatly inspired by the victory of Mugnie over America in Lebanon - only 4 months after the explosion in the naval infantry dormitories American forces had completely left Lebanon. The "revenge" of America consisted in shooting on the hills near Beirut from the battleship "New Jersey". Of course, not a single terrorist of the "Hizballa" was harmed.
In June 1996 the Iranian ministry of information and security conducted a conference of several terrorist leaders in Teheran, in which Mugnie and Egyptian Aiman al-Zawahari (Bin-Laden's deputy ) took part. During the following years, many of al-Qaeda commanders, including Abu-Zubeida and Muhammad Atef, also met Mugnie in different countries of the Middle East and Africa. The tight ties of Mugnie with the Palestinian terrorists (especially with the Fatah), the Hizballa and the al-Qaeda, enabled him to become a link between all those organizations, kind of a coordinator of the international terrorism.
Usbat-al-Ansar, the wahhabites from Lebanon and Chechnya 
Ahmed al Saadi, or "Abu Mojen", a photo from al-Nahar.
The Usbat-al-Ansar - the League of Partisans - group is based in the largest refugees-camp in Lebanon - Ain-al-Hilwe. The League was founded in 1968 by Hissam Shreidi, a wahhabite and an ardent supporter of Jihad against the infidels, especially Israel and Lebanonian Christians. But Shreidi was more preoccupied with squabbles with other groups and didn't succeed very well in his Jihad. In 1991 he was killed as a result of a feud with Amin Kaid, one of the Fatah commanders in Lebanon.
His successor was Ahmad al-Saadi, also known as Abu Mojen. With his coming, the tactics of al-Ansar had changed. In the middle of the 90-s Abu-Mojen already organized the transfer of Palestinian terrorists from refugees camps in Lebanon to Bin-Laden's camps for training.
At the end of the nineties, al-Ansar started to receive monetary support from al-Qaeda, but strangely as it seems those resources weren't used against the most obvious enemy close by - Israel. Instead most of the resources, including trained terrorists, were transferred to Chechnya. Now, after the defeat of Chechen terrorists and the death of Hattab, Arab terrorists are returning to Lebanon and other countries, with support of Iran and Hizballa. But this is a topic for another article.
In January 2000, together with the Takfir-al-Hijra revolt, al-Ansar tried to conduct several terrorist attacks against government forces and the Russian embassy in Beirut. An Usbat-al-Ansar terrorist fired a shot at the embassy from an RPG, killing a guard and wounding a few people. After a week, a group of terrorists tried to break into the embassy, but was prevented by Lebanese security forces.
Usbat-al-Ansar is tied with the Palestinian terrorist Munir Maqda and the Takfir-al-Hijra group. All of them are sponsored by the same source. After the 11 September attacks, Usbat-al-Ansar was included by USA into a list of terrorist organizations, which had no effect on their activity.
Takfir al-Hijra in Afghanistan, America and Lebanon
Usbat-al-Ansar is tied with a terrorist group named Takfir-al-Hijra, which means "extirpation of heresy". After an unsuccessful revolt in Lebanon in January 2000 his group does not show any special activity. Nevertheless in this article we will describe it as an illustration of international terrorist groups actions. The Takfir was founded by the Lebanese Bassam Ahmed Kanj. The group consists mostly of former Afghani mojaheddin, who fought against USSR under the aegis of doctor Abdalla Azzam (a Palestinian from Jenin), the founder of al-Qaeda and a few similar organizations. Once, Azzam was responsible for all Arab volunteers in Afghanistan: their recruitment in different countries of the Middle East, their transfer, with assistance of the CIA and Saudi Arabia, to Pakistan, their training in Peshawar and so on. Bin Laden, the recently killed Hattab and many other now infamous terrorists were once under his command.
Most of Azzam's wards were Moslem fanatics. After the end of the war in Afghanistan they joined different terrorist organizations - some joined Bin-Laden's al-Qaeda, others joined the Egyptian al-Jihad al-Islami, the rest went to Chechnya.
Kanj married an American woman and went to US. At the beginning of the 90-s he worked as a taxi driver in Boston, which to everyone seemed a completely harmless job.
In Boston he became acquainted with Raed Hijazi, that was later convicted in Jordan for participation in a plot to conduct terrorist attacks in December 1999. Two of his other colleagues - Ahmad Gamdi and Satam Sukami - left Boston on morning of September 11-th 2001 on different planes, one of which crashed into the south tower of WTC, and the other - into the north tower.
Another person that Kanj met in America was Kassim Daher, an ex-Afghani fighter, and one of the closest supporters of the Egyptian Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman. The Sheikh now serves his lifetime sentence in America for organizing bombing of the underground garage of the WTC in 1993. Daher, too, was arrested by the police for participation in this terrorist act, but was later released for lack of proof.
In 1996 Kanj returned to Lebanon, and, together with Daher, founded Takfir-al-Hijra, which first consisted of Arab veterans of the war in Afghanistan - Lebanonians, Syrians and Palestinians. Meanwhile, Kanj started to receive money from al-Qaeda, which he used for buying weaponand for preparation of a base in the mountains at the north of Lebanon. Meanwhile he contacted Abu-Mojen, and together they planned several attacks on the government of Lebanon, in order to establish the Shariat (Islamic law) in the country.
In Janury 2000 Kanj decided that he was prepared enough, and together with Usbat-al-Ansar organized a revolt at the north of Lebanon. But the government forces won.
Takfir-al-Hijra, is, actually, almost unknown at the West. But this group is an excellent example of the cooperation between terrorists of the al-Qaeda network. No doubt that there are many such groups and organizations that are active today, but there is a great lack of information about them. Actually, if there is anything known about Takfir-al-Hijra it is because many of its activists were stopped by Lebanonese forces.
Colonel Munir Maqda - a link to Palestinians
Terrorists use the Internet too - Maqda reads the news in his
office in Ain-al-Hilwe refugees camp.
One of the Fatah commanders in Lebanon is the colonel Munir Maqda, that is, like Abu-Mojen, based in the Ain-al-Hilwe refugees camp. Maqda has been tied with al-Qaeda already for several years - most probably, through Mugnie.
In 1999 Mugnie cooperated with al-Qaeda activists, who prepared the "Millennium terrorist attack" in Jordan against several hotels. Those hotels were populated mostly by Christian pilgrims that had come to the Holy Land for Christmas. Maqda brought the terrorists (among which was the abovementioned Raed Hijazi) to his place, supplied them with weapons and helped them to get into Jordan. However, Jordanian intelligence service uncovered the plot.
In 2000, based on testimonies of terrorists arrested in Jordan, Munir Maqda was sentenced to death in absentia, "for ties with al-Qaeda, training of al-Qaeda terrorists and sending them to Jordan, a plot (again, together with al-Qaeda) to conduct terrorist attacks on the kingdom territory". As a reaction to the sentence, Munir gave an interview to the UPI agency, and said: "If Bin-Laden tries to liberate the Holy City of Jerusalem, I'll be flattered to coordinate my efforts with him."
With the beginning of Al-Aksa Intifada, Maqda started to fulfill his promise and to assist the terrorists of the Palestinian Authority, mainly by money which he used to receive from Bin-Laden network.
Field commanders of the Fatah in Samaria and Jenin, Naser Awis and Jamal Ahwil, who were arrested by the Israeli army during the "Defensive Shield" military operation, testified that many terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens were organized and financed by Munir Maqda.
Maqda coordinated with two large terrorist groups in Shkhem (Nablus) and Jenin. In 2001 he applied personally to Awis with an offer of assistance in the struggle against Israel. Awis agreed, and soon 40 to 50 thousand dollars came from Lebanon to his account, that had been opened especially for this purpose. This money was intended for buying weapons, buying materials for bombs preparation and wages for the terrorists.
Awis and Maqda discussed every terrorist attack by phone. Even more, a few months before the arrest of Naser Awis, Maqda offered to direct his activists for suicide terrorist attacks in Israel. Jamal Ahwil also testified that he had received money from Maqda that was intended for financing of "military actions" every month.
The attack on Pi-Glilot fuel storage facility
Around 7:30 am at 23-rd of May, in Pi-Glilot ( the largest gas and petroleum depot in Israel) a fuel truck exploded and started to burn. Soon it was stated that a reason for the explosion was a small bomb, located on the bottom of the truck and activated by a signal from a cellular phone that was connected to it. Luckily, the tank was filled with diesel fuel and not with gasoline, otherwise the tank would've exploded, with high probability of setting off the main fuel tanks in the depot.
There are 150 million tons of fuel in Pi-Glilot, mainly gasoline and diesel, and two to three thousand tons of gas. In case of exploding of the main depot a tremendous explosion would happen. A cloud of gas and fumes would cover a part of Tel-Aviv. Such cloud would be not only toxic, but also, theoretically, explosive. Possible consequences of this cannot be overestimated. No doubt that this would be the most severe terrorist attack in the history of Israel.
Actually everything in this operation was totally different from the methods and modus operandi of Palestinian terrorists. Till now, Palestinians always tried to attack public objects - buses, restaurants, discotheques, clubs, markets and so on. All Palestinian terrorist attacks were directed against large crowds of people, but not against guarded industrial objects (especially such as Pi-Glilot).
The planning of Palestinian terrorist attacks usually consisted mainly of the choice of a place most crowded with Israelis and of the delivery of a suicide bomber. In the case of Pi-Glilot the planning was conducted on the state intelligence service level. It was much more complicated and took at least a few weeks.
First of all, the terrorists traced the route of the truck loaded with fuel in the center of the country, and discovered that the truck stayed unguarded near the driver's house in Holon. They checked the procedure of checking of gasoline tankers in detail, enough to locate the bomb where surely nobody would find it. Even more, they knew the route of the truck already inside the depot. The bomb, that was connected to the cellular phone, exploded at the very moment when the truck was closest to the fuel tanks. This means that the terrorist that activated the bomb, observed the truck when it was passing through the gate, and knew in which interval of time the truck should blow up.
For conduction of such diversion the terrorists had to be located in the very center of Israel, surveilling the depot and the gasoline tankers, during at least a few weeks.
The very construction of the bomb is not common with Palestinian terrorists. To blow up a Merkava tank in Gaza strip, they used an explosive device of 100 kg. When they planned the blowing up of the "Azrieli" tower in Tel-Aviv, they intended to use a car with a ton of explosive. In the case of Pi-Glilot the bomb was tiny, enough only to make the truck catch fire.
Immediately after the explosion Israeli information media told that the SHABAK (General Security Service) was checking the possibility of the al-Qaeda being involved in the terrorist attack. Previously, Israeli officials, including the minister of defense, Ben-Eliezer, and the prime-minister Ariel Sharon, told several times about attempts of the Hizballa and Iran to recruit Israeli Arabs for terrorist activity.
If we compare those two announcements, we return to the beginning of this article - to Imad Mugnie, the "head of the special security department" of the Hizballa...