Militant Says U.S. Prime Revenge Target

New York Daily News ^ | 4/22/02 | Corky Siemaszko

[kattracks]

Palestinian militants seeking revenge for the arrest of alleged suicide bombing mastermind Marwan Barghouti are vowing to strike Israel's chief ally: the United States.

"Now, American targets are the same as Israeli targets," a senior leader of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades told Time magazine. He did not go into specifics.

Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) said the White House should take the threat seriously. "I fear certain American targets are vulnerable," he told CNN.

Al Aqsa's rage was further fanned yesterday when the Israelis nabbed Barghouti's right-hand man, Nasser Abu Hmeid, 31, after a brief gun battle in the Qalandiya refugee camp outside the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Barghouti, 41, was captured in Ramallah last week and was being grilled by security forces about his alleged activities.

As the head of Al Aqsa, Barghouti has been blamed for launching a wave of deadly suicide bomb attacks against Jewish civilians.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has called Barghouti the head of the "most murderous of the terrorist organizations."

The Israeli Army says it has documents linking Al Aqsa directly to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Corky Siemaszko

[hardhead]

Why not hire the Israelis to go to Gitmo and take over the interrogation?

[Charles Martel]

That sounds almost like the hunting season that will open if/when we are infested by the 'blue helmets'. ;-)

Indeed. Anybody planning such actions in the U.S. would be well-advised to contemplate this picture:

Yes... think on that one *real* hard.

[boris]

"In the first place, they have already attacked us. We still stand."

Actually we stand still.

We have taken none of the obvious actions that would promote real security. Troops "guard" airports with no ammunition in their weapons. The borders remain porus. Enemy aliens still reside here; indeed we continue to issue thousands of new visas--including visas for flight schools--to citizens of terrorist states. No retribution, other than bombing some camel humpers in Afghanistan, has been visited on any of the states we know have supported and continue to support the terrorists.

We are paralyzed....

Yep. "stand still" rather than "still stand."

--Boris

[goldstategop]

This is the reward the Great Appeaser Colin Powell received for legitimizing Yasser Arafat, the world's Terrorist Numero Uno. Thanks Colin, for making this country an inviting PLO target.

[Ronin]

Our problem is simply that we are too nice to them. They know we are forbidden by American law to get too "physical", so they really have nothing to fear.

If we really wanted to get answers from the Tallibunnys at Gitmo, we should import a few Mossad or Shin-bet interrogators.

Failing that, we should make a deal with Putin and lease one of the gulag camps in Siberia. I am sure there are some ex-KGB interrogators who would have them singing like canaries in very short order.

[okie01]

There is no islamic country that has friendly relations with its (infidel) neighbors.

Turkey, a Muslim country, has an alliance with...Israel.

[okie01]

"Any idea when this outflowing of intel from the captives will start showing up in the media in some way?

"So far they seem to portray it as wasted effort!"

But we don't want to let al-Qaeda find out what we've learned. Ideally, al-Qaeda is free to wonder whether we've drained them dry.

The less the media knows, the better.