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PA SOURCE: IRAN-BACKED GROUP MAY BE BEHIND
HAIFA BOMB ATTEMPT
PA SOURCE: IRAN-BACKED GROUP MAY BE BEHIND HAIFA BOMB
ATTEMPT
March 23, 2009
Haaretz reports: “A senior source in the Palestinian Authority
told Haaretz Sunday that he suspects Hezbollah or another
organization with links to Iran was behind the attempted
bombing of the Lev Hamifratz shopping mall in Haifa on Saturday
night.
According to the source, the PA holds definitive intelligence
that Hezbollah has been trying for some time to recruit members
of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in an attempt to get
operatives of those terror groups to carry out an attack in
Israel.
The aim of the Lebanese Shi'ite group is to carry out a massive
terrorist attack that would avenge the assassination of its
mastermind terrorist, Imad Mughniyeh, in Damascus in February
2008, the Palestinian source said. Hezbollah blames Israel for
Mughniyeh's death.
Last week, two police officers were killed in the Jordan
Valley, and an anonymous caller claimed responsibility in the
name of the Mughniyeh Units.
In recent weeks there has been a slight increase in the number
of attempted attacks on both sides of the Green Line, leading
security forces to examine the possibility that some of the
events may be linked. All the same, a Shin Bet security service
official said there was nothing to suggest an overall upsurge
of terror.
‘During the past months there have been warnings for pending
attacks,’ the source said yesterday. ‘But we do not identify an
unusual trend suggesting a renewed wave of terrorism.’
The investigation of the attempted bombing, some details of
which are still under a gag order, suggests that it was an
unusually sophisticated plan, and officials suspect the
know-how came from abroad.
The terror attack was thwarted when police sappers disarmed a
bomb weighing dozens of kilograms in a car outside the mall
Saturday night. An organization calling itself the Galilee
Freedom Fighters claimed responsibility Saturday, but security
officials said they doubted the veracity of the claim.
The bomb had the potential to cause enormous destruction, said
Yossi Malka, a police sapper involved in defusing the bomb.
‘We can compare the potential blast to 15 suicide bombers
exploding at once,’ he said…”
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