Posted on 04/27/2006 1:52:11 PM PDT by Nachum
JERUSALEM – A border deal brokered here in November by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice helped facilitate a major planned suicide operation thwarted at the last minute yesterday, which Palestinians say was coordinated by al-Qaida, security officials told WorldNetDaily.
"Rice's border deal has been an abject failure from the start. Now it may have enabled a major operation that would have been devastating had it not been stopped minutes before. It has allowed terrorists free passage into and out of Gaza," said a security official.
Palestinian forces yesterday stopped a car with several terrorists from passing through the Karni border checkpoint, the main cargo passage between Israel and the Gaza Strip. The crossing is controlled by the Palestinians on the Gaza side and by Israeli officers on the Israeli side.
Israel immediately closed the Karni crossing after the car was found to be explosives-laden. Security sources said the car, which was safely captured by Palestinian officers, contained "enormous" amounts of explosives meant to be detonated at the border crossing inside Israel.
At almost the exact same time in Sinai, on the Egyptian side of the Gaza-Egypt border just outside Israel's Rafah crossing, two suicide bombers yesterday exploded near a multinational United Nations peacekeeping force, injuring at least four people.
The attackers hit just two days after a triple bombing killed 24 people at Egypt's Sinai resort city of Dahab on the Gulf of Aqaba.
Israeli security officials, for now, are refraining from commenting on whether yesterday's bombings in the Sinai and attempted bombing at the nearby Israeli crossing were coordinated or if they were related to Monday's Dahab attacks, which already are being widely attributed to al-Qaida.
Senior Palestinian security officials, including the chief of a Palestinian Authority intelligence agency, told WND yesterday's attacks and thwarted bombing were indeed coordinated, were related to Monday's Dahab bombings and were the handiwork of groups working on behalf of al-Qaida.
"Al-Qaida came just a few feet from attacking Israel for the first time," said the intelligence chief, speaking on condition his name be withheld.
Palestinian security officials told WND they have information the terrorists involved in yesterday's thwarted Karni attack traveled from Gaza to the Sinai desert where they received instructions and training and met with local Sinai jihadists to coordinate the bombings.
They said a joint Egyptian-Palestinian antiterrorism taskforce began combing the northern Sinai for suspected plotters of the attack.
The Palestinian security officials said the Gaza-based terrorists involved in the thwarted attack likely were able to travel in recent months to the Sinai through Gaza's Rafah crossing, the main checkpoint between Egypt at Gaza. The checkpoint is one of the largest crossings between the Sinai and the Gaza Strip. It has been the scene of rampant Palestinian weapons smuggling the past few years.
Prior to Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August, the Gaza side of the Rafah border was entirely controlled by the IDF.
But Rice in November brokered a border deal, which Israel accepted reportedly after intense American pressure, restricting the Jewish state to monitoring the Rafah crossing by camera, calling for a European presence at the border station and offering the Palestinians some veto power on vehicles and persons entering Gaza.
After Rice's border deal was finalized in November, both Egyptian and Palestinian security forces deployed at the Rafah crossing, and a rotating team of European inspectors was stationed at the border. The Europeans have fled their posts several times in response to security threats.
New border rules, which sources close to the deal say were partially devised by Rice herself, stipulate Israel cannot restrict who leaves Gaza, but it can ask the European monitors to delay for several hours anyone crossing the border if Israel provides immediate information indicating an entrant may be a security threat. The regulations restrict Israel to rely on security cameras at the border and a list of entrants supplied by the Palestinians.
A WND probe recently found Rice's Rafah border agreement has allowed terrorists to infiltrate the Gaza Strip, where they are poised to attack Israel, and grants Gaza-based terrorists freedom to travel into the nearby Sinai desert, where they can meet with regional jihadists – as Palestinian officials say was the case with yesterday's thwarted bombing.
Israeli security officials told WND the cameras at the Rafah border are not sufficient to identify entrants, and they said the Palestinians have been failing to supply accurate and timely lists of individuals crossing into Gaza.
"There have been many cases of Israel not getting lists at all," said a security official. "Or we get them so near the time of arrival we don't have nearly enough time to ask an entrant to be delayed."
Israeli security officials charged the Palestinians have tampered with the names of entrants, accusing Palestinian border workers of deliberately disguising the personal information of terrorists crossing the border.
"The result," one security officials said, "is that the border between Gaza and Egypt is nonexistent."
Indeed, several senior terrorists based in Gaza previously told WorldNetDaily they were able to cross into the Sinai and back without a problem.
One terror leader – a member of the Popular Resistance Committees, which is suspected of involvement in yesterday's thwarted Israel crossing attack – said he went to the Sinai for "vacation" last month.
Hamas chief Mahmoud al-Zahar's brother, Fadel, entered Gaza through Rafah just days after Rice's border deal was implemented, reportedly bringing with him 13 other wanted terrorists. Fadel Al-Zahar had been deported by Israel to Lebanon in 1991 after he was accused of orchestrating attacks.
An Israeli official said yesterday, "We are still investigating the Karni attack. Certainly the Rafah crossing is allowing terrorists from Gaza to cross into Sinai for training and instructions. It is very likely this collapse of any security at Rafah facilitated yesterday's thwarted attack."
Where's Kirk when you need him?
Thanks for your roadmap to disaster Rice. Can't trust her as Prez and we can't trust McCain. Who do we choose?
Daniel Pipes has a good analysis of the State Department in one of his books. They worked against us from Day 2 after 911 - spiriting out Osama's relatives.
Bush lost all credibility the moment he, as a supposed Christian, attended Ramadan.
I can't help but think they are engaging in some sort of rope-a-dope. At least that's what I'm hoping.
Yes, everybody is fair game for criticism, and some of the folks in Washington could very easily and accurately be called bumbling idiots (such as people that fail out of divinity school, get kicked out of school for plagiarism, etc. and others who provide numerous demonstrations of idiocy). Often I hear politicians make statements that are so outrageously false that I must conclude that the person is either an unconsionable LIAR or a blithering idiot. Such politicians often lack any impressive intellectual accomplishments.
Condi is not above criticism, and some of her decisions or the outcomes of her activities as Secretary of State can certainly be questioned. But to refer to her as a "bumbling idiot", given her unquestionable intellect and her many accomplishments -- from academics to politics to the arts -- does nothing to support one's criticism of her.
I wish, too, but it's more likely dope-a[nd]-dope.
Agreed. Just as a Harvard degree does not necessarily make one a good politician, Joe Citizen's resume shouldn't be a measure of the validity of their criticism.
Lame, man, just lame.
WorldNutCaseDaily makes an anti-terror victory sound like a defeat...complete with blame assigned to Secretary Rice.
Some **Palestinians** stopped this Al Qaeda terror attack. The Egyptians and Palestinans went on the offensive in Sinai against these Al Qaeda terrorists...
Secretary Rice wins. Her policy wins.
WorldNutCaseDaily loses.
You're probably right.
Rice can't be so much of an idiot that she can't see the danger she caused and is causing for Israel. And when I write Israel, I mean the lives of men, women and children.
Therefore, she is worse then a bumbling idiot.
It doesn't really matter. My neighbor, Joe Shmoe, couldn't do any more damage to our Republic if "elected" POTUS.
CONDI FOR PRESIDENT !!!!!! in 08!!!!
Yeah, right.
FMCDH(BITS)
The peppers did not make it to market.
Repeat. The peppers did not make it to market.
There's always next week.
Rice is not an idiot. Rice for President.
Yep. We never had suicide terrorists operating in Israel before. Damn that Condi Rice!
/sarcasm
?????
Joe Farah's bunch now has contacts with "senior terrorists?"
The happy face of a Rice administration:
We have had bank robberies before.
But if the new Bank President ordered security to leave the bank doors unlocked at night, and the guards unarmed, he would be at the very least an idiot.
Using your analogy, when you know there are accomplices inside the bank, some of whom are probably armed, and there is a team of WELL-ARMED robbers outside, is it wise to stand between these two forces at the front door with the vault door open and a backup guard at the vault gate?
Or are you better off using high-tech surveillance at the front door, hire independent surrogates at the front door monitoring entry, use third party guards at the vault gate and lock yourself, well-armed, inside the vault as the most solid line of defense.
The second option keeps you from having your back to a potential threat (inside the bank/Gaza), while still being able to monitor access (through the front door/Gaza-Egypt border), maintain security before threats can access your territory's threshold (the vault gate/Palestinian side security), and gives you absolute control of the most critical and secure point in danger of attack (just inside the vault door/Israeli checkpoint)
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