Palestinian Arms List Matched Ship's Cargo: Shows Arafat's Plan, Israel Says

Palestinian Arms List Matched Ship's Cargo James Bennet New York Times Service Monday, Shipment Shows Arafat's Plan, Israel Says

JERUSALEM More than a year ago, senior officials of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority drew up a shopping list of advanced weapons to radically strengthen the limited Palestinian arsenal, according to U.S. officials briefed on Israeli and American intelligence.

The list closely matched the cargo of rockets, anti-tank grenades and powerful explosives carried by the Karine A, the freighter that Israeli commandos stormed in the Red Sea before dawn Jan. 3, the officials said. What happened between those events is shifting the negotiating footing of the antagonists here.

Israel has seized on the Palestinian effort to buy weapons, from Iranian sources through a senior official of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, as evidence of its vulnerability in the region. It is portraying the attempt at smuggling as proof that the Palestinian leadership is planning for war while talking of peace.

Longer term, it is laying a foundation for a central contention of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: that Israel must retain territory in the West Bank as a buffer against the enhanced threat it fears may arrive with a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Thrown on the defensive by the Israeli disclosures, the Palestinian Authority said that it had detained for questioning three officials accused by Israel of overseeing the smuggling operation.

One of the men, Adel Mughrabi, is a Palestinian naval officer who was described by Israeli military officials as the chief agent for the arms deal. A second, Fuad Shobaki, is a close Arafat aide and has long been in charge of finances for the Palestine Liberation Organization's military operations. The third man detained was identified as Fathi Razem, deputy commander of the Palestinian naval police.

The men were interrogated Saturday and were being detained "as a preventive measure," according to a statement carried by the Palestinian press agency, Wafa.

Israel continued its retaliation for the smuggling attempt by blowing up a Palestinian police base in the Gaza City harbor Saturday.

The Palestinian Authority appeared to be edging toward an acknowledgment that some of its officials were involved in the matter. But Mr. Arafat and the rest of his leadership again denied any knowledge of the smuggling attempt, which is barred under Palestinian agreements with Israel about the kinds of weapons the Palestinians can have. Ahmed Abdel Rahman, the secretary-general of the Palestinian cabinet, called the operation "an Israeli trap."

Top Israeli military and political officials said they might not be able to produce evidence proving their accusation that Mr. Arafat was involved. But his failure so far to explain the role of the Palestinian Authority, which by treaty with Israel has limited power to govern Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, has further eroded his credibility even among European diplomats sympathetic to his cause. [Stratfor takes one on the chin]

Israel is a nuclear power and has jet fighters and tanks supplied by the United States. Had the arms shipment gotten through, Israel would have retained overwhelming firepower. Scoffing at what they see as sanctimony by their leaders, some Israelis have noted that in their own prestate period, Jews smuggled weapons into Palestine in the hope of creating and defending their own nation.

But what makes this shipment so threatening, Israeli officials say, are Israel's geographic vulnerability to its Arab neighbors and the roles played by Iran and Hezbollah in supplying the weapons.

The Israeli Army's chief of planning, Major General Giora Eiland, said that "what Iran is trying to do is to create another base, besides its base in Lebanon," to threaten Israel.

Israeli officials have presented no evidence but instead cite a commonsense argument for Iran's involvement. Most of the weapons were made in Iran, and they were loaded aboard the Karine A off the Iranian coast, according to Israeli officials, citing their interrogation of the ship's crew and other intelligence. The weapons were packed in cleverly designed, submersible canisters that Israel says were made in Iran.

Israeli officials said the Iranian government had sold the weapons to the Palestinians for about $10 million. They said Iranian officials were seeking greater influence with the Palestinian Authority and information, which Palestinians have in detail, about Israeli military positions, as well as roads, power plants and other important systems.

Tehran has dismissed the Israeli accusations. But in Iran, the Revolutionary Guards have discretionary money and access to weapons, and they often run operations independent of the elected government of President Mohammed Khatami.

Many of the munitions on the Karine A, like the 211 anti-tank mines or the 10 Sagger missiles, could be described as defensive. But others could be used for attack, including 62 122mm Katyusha rockets, with a range of 19 kilometers (12 miles), and more than 2 tons of explosives.

Israeli military officials argue that the Palestinians had hoped that the rockets would deter them from attacking Palestinian-controlled areas. And they note that the smuggled explosives were up to 2.5 times more powerful than the homemade bombs suicide attackers use now.

Israeli officials have told U.S. officials that the weaponry makes even more sense in the context of regional war. The Katyusha rockets would put almost all Israeli cities within range of Palestinian territory.

A narrow country with a long coastline, Israel lacks the "strategic depth," the officials said, to absorb such an attack while fending off air strikes or other assaults from Arab neighbors.

American officials appear to have also tracked the smuggling effort closely. A former Clinton administration official said the Americans had known of a Palestinian effort buy weapons for more than a year.[Clinton's legacy takes another one on the chin]

Israeli officials say the chief Palestinian agent for the deal was Mr. Mughrabi, the Palestinian naval officer. "He is the one who held all the ends together," a senior Israeli military official said.

"He made sure everything was going as planned, that the ship would go safely to Iran to pick up the arms," the Israeli said. "He was the one paying the sailors their salary."

Wonder how that list matches up to this similar 'apprehension' back in May 2001?

(20:00) Gaza-bound ship filled with weapons captured off Haifa

By The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition Staff

May, 07 2001

Naval forces assisted by IAF helicoptors captured a fishing boat loaded with a massive quantity of advanced arms and ammunition bound for the Palestinian Authority-controlled Gaza Strip.

The Lebanese vessel - with a cargo of Katyushas, anti-aircraft rockets, mortars of various calibers, and massive quantities of ammunition - left port on Saturday and began sailing south for a Gaza rendezvous.

During this evening's IDF news conference in Haifa announcing the vessel's capture, OC Navy Adm. Yedidya Ya'ari said that Ahmed Jibril, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, was responsible for the arms shipment.

The cargo included SA-7 Strella hand-held anti-aircraft missiles, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), anti-tank mines and other types of rockets used against various armored vehicles.

This weaponry is significantly more sophisticated than that currently used by the Palestinians.

The navy intercepted the boat Saturday off the coast of Haifa, outside of Israeli territorial waters, the source said.

The IDF Spokesperson released a comprehensive inventory listing the arsenal found aboard the Lebanese vessel:

20 Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs)
9 RPG sights
100 PG-7 rockets
50 OG-7 rockets
150 RPG charges
120 RKG anti-tank grenades
4 SA-7 surface-to-air Strella missles
2 60 millimeter mortar launchers
98 60 millimeter mortar shells
50 107 millimeter Katyusha rockets
70 anti-tank mines
24 hand grenades of various types
30 Hungarian Kalashnikov assault rifles
116 Kalashnikov ammunition magazines
Approximately 13,000 rounds of 7.62 millimeter Kalashnikov ammunition

Katyusha rockets of a 107 millimeter caliber have a much longer range than the 82 millimeter mortars which the Palestinians have been using against Israeli targets, and would enable Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to threaten Israeli cities such as Ashkelon.

Katyusha rockets have a range of approximately 8.5 kilometers.

According to one military intelligence source, other weapons found on the Lebanese ship are powerful enough to strike at Tel Aviv. Also found on board the fishing vessel were cards and maps used to determine firing ranges and distances.

Under the Oslo accords, the PA is forbidden to have mortars or rockets. They are permitted to have weapons such as automatic rifles, which have been used in many of the attacks against Israeli targets.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the Knesset today that the Palestinian Authority was attempting to smuggle weapons into its territory.

Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer also warned today that the Palestinians would very soon be using more deadly weapons than the mortars.

"I think that in the next few days, perhaps the next few hours, you will be faced with a reality which will be simply difficult to believe - what it is that we are confronting," he told Army Radio. "I think that quite soon we will be passing beyond the stage of the mortar bombs."

As early as December 1998, OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon said weapons were being smuggled into the Gaza Strip from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

These explosives were smuggled in via tunnels under the border separating Egypt from the Gaza Strip. Dozens of these tunnels are discovered and destroyed by the IDF every year.

In June 1999, the IDF discovered a major tunnel between the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian border town of Rafah, suspected of being used to smuggle merchandise, drugs, fugitives, and possibly weapons.

It was the sixth and most sophisticated tunnel discovered so far that year, having lighting, a telephone system, air conditioning, and a small rail line running from end to end, like in a coal mine.

The army said the 75-meter long tunnel extended beneath the Israeli-controlled border fence and road which splits the town of Rafah.

"You can't walk upright in it, since it's only 90 centimeters high, but the tunnel had carts which moved smoothly along the rails," said one military source.

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