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