Israeli official: UN personnel and vehicles used by terrorists throughout Mideast

Terrorist organizations in Palestinian controlled areas as well as in Syria and Lebanon take advantage of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) workers and their vehicles to transport arms and terrorists to perpetrate attacks and coordinating activities between them.

A document drawn up by defense establishment officials that reached the Jerusalem Post focuses on UNWRA employee Nahed Rashid Ahmed Attalah, 38, a resident of Jabaliyah in the Gaza Strip who was arrested last August by security forces as he returned from Egypt.

The report also notes that Palestinian terrorists in Israeli custody admitted to security officials to using UNWRA facilities, equipment and vehicles to assist in carrying out terror attacks knowing that UNWRA personnel are able to travel in Israel, Palestinian Authority areas as well as in Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere without being subjected to any checks by security officials.

Attalah, the document says, is currently on trial on eight counts that include aiding terrorist activities affiliated with the Fatah's Popular Resistance Committee (PRC) and using United Nations vehicles and the free travel permit he was entrusted with to facilitate terrorist organizations, conspiring to trade in arms and assisting in attempted premeditated murder and possessing illegal arms. He was indicted last September and in February this year the IDF military court of appeals decided to extend his detention until the end of the legal procedures against him.

Attalah first began working for UNWRA in 1987 as a director of food supplies for Gaza Strip refugees. In order to carry out the job he was provided with a United Nations vehicle and issued a United Nations laissez-passer that entitled him to unrestricted travel in the region. According to the report he constantly used his vehicle and permit to assist PRC terrorist activities against Israel while maintaining close contacts with PFLP officials in Lebanon.

According to the report, Attalah used UN vehicles to transport terrorists to sites of planned attacks and used his travel permit issued to enable him to conduct official UN business in Syria and Lebanon where he made contact with senior officials affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in order to arrange the financing of arms for the PRC. He admitted to investigators "inter alia" that he used his car to transport terrorists and arms.

According to the document in June 2002, he drove two armed terrorists affiliated with the PRC to the Karni area in the Gaza Strip where they planned to perpetrate an attack against an IDF position there. The two told Attallah that after they completed their mission they would contact him so he could pick them up and take them home. For unclear reasons the attack was not carried out and Attalah took them home in his UN vehicle.

Later the same month, he drove two PRC members and assisted them to transfer a gas cylinder that was hidden in a citrus grove and would be later used in a terrorist attack. At the end of July he drove two PRC members to the Beit Lahiya area where they planned to perpetrate an attack. The two had in their posession three RPG bombs and three plastic pipes, which they possibly intended to use to improvise rocket launchers and the bombs as rockets.

Attalah dropped the two off and later picked them up after they called him and said their mission had been accomplished. Attalah told investigators that he was repeatedly asked by PRC officials to drive them in his UN car as it was never subjected to IDF inspections. Attalah also made use of his UN issued laissez-passer to travel to Egypt, Lebanon and Syria where he contacted PFLP officials in order to receive funds and transfer arms for the PRC terrorist activities.

In January 2002 he met with Samih Razeq known as Abu Rami a senior PFLP official who was involved in activating terrorists in the Gaza Strip. Attalah returned to the Gaza but maintained contact with Abu Rami via telephone conversations and on the Internet. Because of his links with Abu Rami he was contacted by PRC official Mahmoud Karmut (Abu Sa'ad) who asked him to request funds for the PRC to purchase arms.

Attalah carried out the instructions and told investigators that he understood from his conversation with Abu Rami that the latter would check with PFLP or Hizbullah officials. In August 2002 Abu Rami told him that the funds were not in his posession and it was decided that Attalah would travel to Egypt where they would check on the transfer. Security forces arrested Attalah as he returned from Egypt via the Rafah crossing to the Gaza Strip.

In talks with Powell, EU will insist on "central" role for U.N. in postwar Iraq
Tue Apr 1,12:32 PM ET

By ROBERT WIELAARD, Associated Press Writer

BRUSSELS, Belgium - European Union (news - web sites) officials plan to tell U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) when they meet Thursday that the United Nations (news - web sites) must play the central role in rebuilding postwar Iraq (news - web sites).

EU spokeswoman Emma Udwin said Tuesday that senior diplomats from the 15-nation union would stress that it was their "primary concern to have the U.N. center stage."

"We believe the U.N. system has a unique capacity and experience in post-conflict states," she said, adding, "The U.N. should play a central role during and after the crisis."

Powell is scheduled to hold talks Thursday in Brussels with foreign ministers from EU and NATO (news - web sites) nations as well as his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov.

The talks among NATO allies are expected to focus on repairing alliance unity following the rift over Iraq and on a possible NATO role in helping stabilize the country after the war.

For security reasons, Powell plans to meet an EU delegation led by Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou at NATO headquarters.

Officials said the decision not to let Powell visit the EU head office, only 3 kilometers (2 miles) away, was not connected to the recent discovery of listening devices in meeting rooms at the EU complex.

"We expect (Powell) to discuss the war in Iraq and ... whatever will happen postwar," Udwin said.

But she said the EU was not ready to discuss postwar specifics because the war itself still appeared to be in its early days.

"This meeting comes too early for us to discuss detailed plans," she said. "It is important that we carry on discussions during the conflict."

Given the souring of transatlantic relations in recent months, she said it was "encouraging" that Powell was coming to Brussels.

In Athens, Greek government spokesman Christos Protopapas said he wished Powell had come to the EU in the runup to the war.

"Nevertheless, if he wants to talk on these issues, it is never too late," Protopapas said.

The Iraq war has divided the EU nations and 13 mostly East European nations seeking admission.

Germany and France lead a no-war camp. Britain, Spain, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal and several East European candidate nations have sided with the United States.

Greece, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, has been unable to bridge the rift. Instead it has focused discussions on matters of agreement, such as Iraq's eventual reconstruction and the likely U.N. role in that work.

French President Jacques Chirac emerged from an EU summit March 21 warning that neither Britain nor the United States should lead any postwar administration in Iraq. He said allowing this would legitimize the invasion of Iraq.

The leaders of the EU delegation meeting Powell will be Papandreou, EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten, and Javier Solana, the EU's foreign and security affairs chief.

Patten said recently that unless the United Nations gets a lead role in rebuilding Iraq, it will be difficult for EU governments to provide significant reconstruction funding.

Before Powell left for his trip to Turkey and Brussels, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said he wanted to discuss the possible European contribution to a postwar peacekeeping force in Iraq.

"We have allies with different views. We will be talking about that," Boucher said. "The issue at this moment for us and the Europeans on the diplomatic track is to look at what is going on in Iraq, not in terms of the past, but in terms of what we can do to give the Iraqis a better future."

EU spokeswoman Emma Udwin said Tuesday that senior diplomats from the 15-nation union would stress that it was their "primary concern to have the U.N. center stage."

Why does the EU feel so desperate for the UN and them to be the center stage? Because there are BILLIONS to be made in the Oil for Reconstruction Circus. I would agree to this plan however if only two minor points are enforced.

1. Any Nation found guilty of breaking the UN anti-war materials Sanctions by supplying arms to Saddam when the UN was "disarming" him should be excluded from any role in Iraq's reconstruction as they are guilty of its destruction.

2. The UN can be as center stage as it wants, provided they foot the bill. There is no reason to allow a "UN Tax" to be imposed on Iraq by having the UN control Iraq's oil flow. The New Nation of Iraq owns it's own oil, and does not need Turd world busybodys to loot it in the name of "reconstruction".

If Iraq is free of Sadam why does the UN have to be there at all? Politics is a word that describes the UN's greed perfectly, poly means many and tics are blood sucking insects.

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