www.debka.com
Two Palestinian terrorists shot dead 5 Israelis - a mother and her 4 daughters - in ambush of cars coming out of Gaza Strip's Gush Katif on Kissufim road. Their victims were Tali Hatuel, 34, a social worker, Hilah, 11, Hadar, 9, Roni, 7 and Meirav, 2. Two Israeli troops and civilian injured before shooting two terrorists dead. After hitting the Hatuel car, two Palestinians approached and murdered the children and mother at close range under cover of general offensive by several Palestinian bands on Israeli military positions. Exception made only for dwellers of bereaved village of Katif Murders were grim backdrop for Likud vote on Sharon's plan, sparked angry scenes against proponents at balloting stations. PM's son Omri Sharon was rescued by police from jostling crowds at Jerusalem's Convention Halls. Low turnout for Likud referendum on Sharon's disengagement plan -14pc by early evening. PM said earlier he wont be bound by referendum result although put all his prestige on the line. Under shadow of terrorist murders, Sharon may postpone his intended government reshuffle. American hostage Thomas Hammel escapes Iraqi captors after 3-week ordeal and walks up to US troops near Tikrit. Remains of US army reservist in same convoy found Friday. Doubts raised about authenticity of photos run by London Mirror of British troops torturing Iraqi prisoners. US has undertaken disciplinary action against 17 US soldiers including a brigadier general suspended on charges of abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners. At least five Western engineers - 2 Americans, 2 Britons and an Australian as well as a Saudi National Guards captain were killed and many more injured, including two Canadians. The Saudi ambassador to Britain, Prince Turki bin-Faisal, said the attack was carried out by Saudi members of the al Qaeda "cult", three of whom were gunned down by Saudi security forces and a fourth captured. After attacking the refinery, they stormed the offices of ABB Lummus, whose headquarters are in Houston, Texas. There, they shot the five Westerners dead before shooting up a hotel, a McDonalds restaurant and shops and tossing a pipe bomb at the International School in Yanbu. Saudi security forces repulsed an attack on the offices of the Royal Commission of Jubail and Yanbu. Witnesses report that one of their western victims was tied to a car and dragged round the city before being dumped outside a Saudi-British bank. DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources question the official casualty numbers and also the statement that only four terrorists dealt this much damage to so many targets and kept going for more than six hours. It is far more likely that several al Qaeda bands fanned out over the strategic town, which until Saturday had escaped al Qaeda violence. The raid occurred exactly one week after al Qaeda suicide bombers used speedboats to disable Iraq's main export terminals off the southern port of Basra. Six million foreigners live in Saudi Arabia, 30,000 of whom hold key positions in the kingdom's oil industry and other vital sectors. ABB Lummus is considering repatriating all its Western employees. This latest al Qaeda attack is one more blow aimed by the fundamentalist organization at sabotaging US-Saudi oil interests, destabilizing the Saudi throne and forcing oil prices to spiral as the US presidential election date nears. Bush looks like backtracking on some of the key words contained in his statement and letter that so elated the Israeli prime minister after their talks in Washington on April 14. He is preparing a second letter aimed at pleasing Jordan's king Abdullah just as much when he arrives for his rescheduled White House talks on May 6. Sharon has been triumphantly waving the presidential statement which asserted it would be unrealistic to expect Israel to return to the 1949 armistice lines and noted that Palestinian refugees must be settled in a Palestinian state rather than Israel. Sharon's advisers and spokesmen have presented these assertions as fully endorsing Israeli settlement blocs outside the Gaza Strip and also praising the Gaza Strip withdrawal as a bold, unprecedented move by any former Israeli prime minister. In Basra, many children were among the 68 killed and hundreds injured, 5 of them British soldiers. DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources reveal that for the first time since the September 11 attacks in the United States, Osama bin Laden's network is operating on a regional scale. Its original plot included Amman and the Adam border crossing from Jordan into Israel and the West Bank. Bush had expected to quickly squash the various elements of the Iraqi insurgency and their spring offensive and was banking heavily on a decisive autumn offensive to stamp them out just before the presidential election. On Saturday, however, not an hour went by without rockets, exploding cars, mortar fire or roadside bombs spreading havoc across Iraq, leaving at least 10 US troops and 35 Iraqis dead, many more injured and a trail of rage. Two US sailors were killed and five injured intercepting one of the three lethal speedboats. Two more blew up near the oil rig 7 miles out to sea where two tankers were moored. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, 57, pediatrician, rhymester of anti-Semitic verse and leader of the most hardline wing of the extremist group, was slain Saturday night, April 17, by Israeli airborne missiles which blew up his Subaru in Gaza City just three weeks after his predecessor, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, died in similar fashion. Before his burial Sunday, accompanied by tens of thousands of frenzied mourners, Hamas's supreme leader Khaled Mashaal ordered the Gazan branch to appoint a new leader and keep his identity secret. Together with the appointment, the Hamas swore "one hundred revenge attacks" would shake Israel to its core. No prominent party minister is now left in Sharon's path to spearhead the opposition when some 200,000 Likud members cast their votes May 2. In the Knesset, where left-wing opposition parties promise him a safety net, Sharon and his plan are home free. The only real impediment he faces comes from a completely different quarter, Lebanon. The pledge incorporated in the Sharon letter to US president George W. Bush to voluntarily evacuate the Gaza Strip by the end of 2005 is a red flag to a bull for Islamic extremists and Palestinian terrorists, making them determined to thwart it at all costs. It looked very much like an opportunity to transpose a version of the Iraqi coalition into the Palestinian-Israeli sphere. This transposition, as put to him by the British prime minister, convinced the US president to drop his objections to the Sharon plan and embrace it in an epic U-turn. The Iraq analogy, rather than concern for Sharon's political survival, was behind his two affirmations, for the first time by any US president, that "major population centers" on the West Bank have created new realities, and that the resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem must be in a Palestinian state rather than Israel. Neither Bush nor Blair minds Sharon capitalizing on their support for gains at home. Even the Likud poll is useful for concentrating Israeli and Palestinian minds until it is too late to change certain facts. Hence Sharon's blitz campaign to get as much as possible done before people wake up. Bush is the first US president to refer to the 1949 Armistice Lines in a formal statement on the Middle East conflict. This was the most striking and portentous US policy change to emerge from his joint news conference with Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon after their White House talks Wednesday, April 14: What he said was: Realities on the ground have changed over decades. In the light of those changes, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the 1949 armistice lines. Final frontiers should be mutually agreed on the basis of these changes. DEBKAfile's political analysts examined the 1949 Armistice Agreements to find out why Bush departed from the usual pre-June 4 1967 Green Line locution. They found that the 1949 a...
|
http://csua.com/feed/