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Four Israeli security guards were shot Saturday evening by two Palestinians in the Sheikh Saad neighborhood in east Jerusalem. According to Israeli press reports, the guards sustained moderate to serious injuries in the attack. The two Palestinian attackers were shot and killed. Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's military wing, claimed responsibility for the shooting attack. Earlier, Palestinian police killed a senior activist in the northern West Bank town of Tubas and five others were injured in the ensuing shootout between police and gunmen, security officials said. The clash started when police ambushed Raed Abdel Razik, the leader of Al Aqsa Martyrs'...

Undercover IDF soldiers stormed a Tulkarm caf and gunned down a prominent Fatah militant Monday evening, Palestinians witnesses said. Residents of the northern West Bank city said Mahmoud Aved al-Al, an al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades operative from the Gaza Strip, was killed. The witnesses said a 12 year-old boy was critically wounded, and a second Fatah militant was moderately wounded, in the raid. IDF sources confirmed that units entered Tulkarm and surrounded the establishment after receiving intelligence that the fugitive - who they say was in the midst of planning a suicide attack - was sitting inside. The sources said troops...

Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a car in Gaza City carrying a top Palestinian security officer in a drive by shooting that killed the officer and four other people, senior Palestinian security officials said. The attack occurred near the home of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in the middle of the afternoon, when the attackers shot dozens of bullets into a gray Audi belonging to Brig. Gen. Jad Tayeh, the head of international coordination in the Palestinian intelligence service, security officials said. Tayeh was killed along with two of his bodyguards and two civilians, Palestinian officials said. The motive for...

A violent fight between clans in Khan Yunis in central Gaza on Saturday erupted into an all-out battle in which an officer of the Palestinian Authority (PA)'s new elite army was killed, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Five children and 24 others were injured in the fracas, which broke out Saturday night between two clans. The newly-created Interior Ministry Executive Force, made up of terrorists from various organizations, tried to break up the fight and was drawn into an armed battle.

The Palestinian Authority security forces have been instructed to resume their campaign against Palestinians suspected of "collaboration" with Israel, PA officials disclosed on Monday. The officials said the order comes in the wake of Israel's ongoing policy of targeted assassinations against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah members, especially in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians believe that Israel is increasingly relying on Palestinian informers in tracking down and killing the wanted activists. "We have decided to wage a war on the traitors who are helping Israel kill our activists," said a Fatah legislator. The PA already has about 100 suspected "collaborators"...

Gunmen storm Palestinian PM’s office (AFP) 13 April 2006 RAMALLAH, West Bank - Around 20 gunmen from the radical Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade on Thursday stormed the Palestinian prime minister’s office in the West Bank town of Ramallah, security sources said. The militants forced their way into the downtown building in the middle of a video-conference linking senior civil servants based in the West Bank town with their counterparts in Gaza City, the security sources and witnesses told AFP. Although Ramallah serves as the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority, new prime minister Ismail Haniya has had to operate out...

Apr. 7, 2006 23:09 | Updated Apr. 9, 2006 0:30 Six Palestinian terrorists killed in latest IAF air strike By YAAKOV KATZ A Palestinian policeman inspects a damaged car after it was hit by an Israeli missile in Gaza City Saturday April 8, 2006. Photo: AP An IAF aircraft fired missiles at a Fatah training camp near Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip late Saturday evening after spotting suspicious activity. Six Palestinians were killed in the strike. Weekend missile strikes killed a total of 14 Palestinians, including a seven-year-old boy. Security forces will go on high alert Sunday morning out...

Wednesday, March 15, 2006Jericho and Justice / Kidnapping and Chaos Let's put this widely reported story in context: On 17 October 2001 members of the Popular Front For The Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) gunned down Israeli Tourism Minister Rehevam Ze'evi in a Jerusalem hotel. Five Palestinian terrorists were eventually charged in the murder. In April, 2002 Israel was besieging the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in his Muqata compound in Ramallah after still more terrorist attacks the previous month. The United States brokered an agreement between Arafat and the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to end the siege. The IDF...

Egypt threatened to withdraw its support for the Palestinian Authority if the PA did not act to control the rampant anarchy in the Gaza Strip, according to a report in the London Arab newspaper Al Quds. The report claimed that following the incident at the Rafah border crossing in which two Egyptian soldiers were killed, Egyptian authorities delivered the threat to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas as part of a specially delivered message. Egypt also threatened to withdraw its support for the peace process if the PA did not take the proper steps to restore order to Gaza. Israel Radio reported...

Tensions were mounting in the ruling Fatah party on Monday following reports that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas had decided to name his own candidates to run in next month's parliamentary elections. Fatah gunmen, who took to the streets in several areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, vowed to prevent the PA from holding the parliamentary elections. The gunmen raided a number of PA election offices to protest Abbas's decision to ignore the results of primary elections held for the party over the past two weeks. The elections saw representatives of the young guard in Fatah defeat most...

Israeli Occupation forces killed Sunday at a pre-dawn raid a Palestinian activist and arrested three others in the West Bank city of Nablus, WAFA reported. The victim was identified as Iyad Mohammed Al-Hashash 19, of Balata refugee camp, east Nablus. Meanwhile, Palestinian medics reported that Khaddar Rayan died of wounds he sustained when an Israeli missile hit a group of Al Aqsa Martyrs fighters, in the northern part of Gaza Strip. Rayan, a member of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was critically wounded in the head late Thursday when Israel targeted three Palestinians activists located in a farm close Jabalyia refugee...

At least two Palestinian Authority policemen were killed in fierce clashes that erupted on Sunday evening between PA security forces and Hamas gunmen in various parts of the Gaza Strip. PA security sources said the two victims, including the commander of the Palestinian police station in Shati refugee camp, Ali Makkawi, were killed when hundreds of Hamas gunmen attacked the station with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic gunfire. They said another 30 people, mostly Hamas members and civilians, were injured in the confrontations. The attackers also set a number of PA police vehicles on fire. The clashes began in the Sheikh...

JENIN — Rafat Moussa Turkouman has a face you don’t want to forget. He looks like your average 20-year-old, but this young Palestinian from Jenin (search) was a member of the Islamic Jihad with dreams of becoming a homicide bomber and plans to blow up a bus in Tel Aviv. Turkouman plotted to disguise himself as an Israeli teenager, slip into a crowd and do what so many Palestinian homicide bombers — more than 129 to date — have done in the past four-and-a-half years. When asked in an exclusive FOX News interview whether the stories about him were true,...

Jan. 13, 2005 23:01 | Updated Jan. 14, 2005 0:05 Two Israelis killed in bomb attack at Karni crossing By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH Emergency teams rush to scene of the explosion at the Karni crossing. A double suicide bomb attack at the Karni commercial crossing in northern Gaza left five dead and at least 10 wounded late Thursday night. According to initial reports, two suicide bombers infiltrated the area and blew up simultaneously on the Israeli side of the crossing. Shortly after the massive explosion, gun battles erupted between security forces and Palestinian gunmen. The two suicide bombers were counted in...

This op-ed was inspired by the D.C. Watson piece, (Tuesday AFP), which was a real eye-opener. [Posted on FR:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1297063/posts] Hopefully by now, all who read his piece have become acutely aware that the threat is real. Prior to 9/11, I had never heard of a man named Dr. Daniel Pipes. Then again, most of us hadn't. For years prior to 9/11, Dr. Pipes was discussing Islamism - the rise of Islamic fundamentalism against the West, via books and articles. While we were aiding the Mujahideen by giving them arms and logistics in Afghanistan against the invading Soviet Union, Dr. Pipes...

Translation from Hebrew to English by me Masked terrorists kidnapped a Palestinian Arab from a hospital in [Palestinian Authority controlled] Ramallah and murdered him. The Al Aqsa Martyrs brigade took responsibility for the act, saying they murdered him because he sold land to Jews.

A Palestinian fighter was shot dead by Israeli troops in fierce clashes in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, Palestinian medics said. Palestinian security sources named the man as Khaled al-Hawi, 24, a local leader of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Three other fighters were also injured in this incident, medics said. The clashes broke out after dozens of Israeli troops surrounded a house where members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades had taken refuge, witnesses and security sources told AFP. Meanwhile, a Palestinian girl died Monday of wounds she sustained last week in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, while...

QABATIYA, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian militants publicly executed an accused collaborator with Israel with machineguns in a West Bank town square on Friday after a throng of Palestinian onlookers called for him to die. Wild celebrations broke out among the hundreds of spectators after four gunmen from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, shot father-of-two Muhammad Rafiq Daraghmeh, 45, in Qabatiya. Militants had hustled Daraghmeh into the square before assembled townsfolk and told them: "This man, as you know ... gave information to Israel on the whereabouts of our fighters. What should his sentence...

Two Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli at an industrial zone on the Gaza Strip border before being shot dead by Israeli security personnel. The zone is a rare example of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation amid conflict. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group in Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for what it called a "martyrdom operation" at the Erez border crossing. At least two other Israelis were wounded in the early morning clash, an Israeli security source said. Since a woman suicide bomber from the Islamic group Hamas killed four people at Erez last month, the Israeli military has stepped...

Dec. 11, 2003 Hamas wins student election race on Israeli bodycount ticket By KHALED ABU TOAMEH On the campaign trail Photo: AP At Beir Zeit University's student election, which focused on which party had killed the most Israelis, Hamas swept to victory Wednesday, defeating Yasser Arafat's Fatah. The campaign at the campus near Ramallah featured exploding models of Israeli buses and claims of prowess based on Israeli casualties. In voting Wednesday, Hamas won 25 seats of the 51 on the council, Fatah took 20, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - a radical PLO faction - won five...

<p>Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei speaks this month outside his office in Ramallah, West Bank.</p> <p>RAMALLAH, West Bank (CNN) -- Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei said Wednesday that Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups have told him they are willing to discuss a new cease-fire with Israel.</p>

Three masked gunmen have executed a Palestinian man in the centre of the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday after accusing him of being a collaborator, witnesses and security sources said. The three said they were from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, witnesses said. "The guy had a mask on and had his hands tied behind his back," one witness told AFP. "Before they shot him, they took off his mask. They then said he was a collaborator and we sentence him to death." The trio fired around 10 bullets...

Israeli policemen killed a Palestinian driver Sunday morning near the A-Ram roadblock north of Jerusalem. The driver - Sulmian Abu-Aliya, who is from a refugee camp in Jericho - drove through the roadblock, and police said they thought he was trying to run over a police officer. Palestinian sources said Israeli police fired at Abu-Aliya while inspecting his car, after the latter passed through the roadblock. Abu-Aliya died of his wounds a short time after being shot. Palestinians started throwing rocks at the police after the shooting. Meanwhile, Palestinian activists detained after they refused an order to leave Yasser Arafat's...

Palestinian security forces have arrested about 20 wanted militants sheltering in the Ramallah compound of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. The arrests were made in line with an agreement with the United States and Israel. Moving into Yasser Arafat's battered compound, Palestinian security forces rounded up about 20 wanted Palestinians, most of them members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The militant group is the armed offshoot of Mr Arafat's Fatah movement. A senior Palestinian official says the raid was part of a deal with the United States and Israel, and the arrested men will now be transferred to Palestinian jails...

The assets of an Islamic charity foundation with alleged links to the militant Palestinian group Hamas would be frozen, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said. Mr Downer said the government had added the al-Aqsa Foundation to a list of organisations whose assets could be frozen because of suspected links to terror groups. "As a consequence of this listing it is now a criminal offence for persons who hold assets that are owned or controlled by the al-Aqsa Foundation to use or deal with those assets," he said. "It is also a criminal offence for persons to make assets available to the...

Mar. 10, 2003 Court sentences Fatah terrorist to four life sentences By THE JERUSALEM POST INTERNET STAFF A military court in Beit El has sentenced Nasser Shawish, a member of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and a leader of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, to four consecutive life sentences for his involvement in the planning of three suicide attacks against Israeli targets, reports Army Radio. Shawish is responsible for the suicide attack in Jerusalem's King George street last year in which three Israelis were killed.

February 24, 2003 Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Develop New Type of Rocket The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the paramilitary wing of the Fatah Movement headed by Yasser Arafat, published an official statement on Friday (February 21, 2003) claiming responsibility for firing rockets at the Jewish community of Gush Katif. They also claim that the rockets were a new type of rocket, developed and manufactured by the Brigades themselves, called Al Buraq. Rockets Developed by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades The following are extracts from the Fatah's official statement taking responsibility for the firing of rockets at Israeli communities: "Al Aqsa...

JERUSALEM: Israel has claimed that it was in possession of evidence which suggested that Iran was behind the twin suicide bombings that had rocked Tel Aviv about a fortnight ago. According to Ha'aretz daily, Israel has evidence that Iran sent money and instructions, usually via Lebanon, to the military branch of the Fatah in Nablus, known as the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Meanwhile, Tel Aviv is checking whether the cell involved in the attack had received money from Iran, the daily reported. Two Fatah activists from Nablus had carried out the attacks near old central bus station in Tel Aviv in...

A senior Fatah activist was assassinated by Israel on Sunday evening when a public telephone exploded in his hand in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, Palestinian witnesses said. They identified him as Mohammed Abayat, 25, a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group affiliated with Fatah movement. Kamal Ahmed, secretary-general of Fatah's Bethlehem branch, accused Israel of assassinating Abayat. The witnesses said Abayat was killed by an explosion as he made a call in a public telephone booth near a hospital in Beit Jala, a town outside Bethlehem. Medical officials said the blast occurred shortly after Abayat...

Here we go again

The New York Times says President Bush decided to call for a change in the Palestinian leadership after receiving an intelligence report last week that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was helping finance al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group that claimed responsibility for the most recent suicide attack in Jerusalem. According to the Times, Mr. Arafat had authorized a $20,000 payment to the group, which is an off-shoot of the Palestinian leader's Fatah Movement. The report did not say when the payment was made. Earlier this year, Israel said it had found two documents signed by Mr. Arafat authorizing payments to known...

Saudi pressure on Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, including a personal message from Crown Prince Abdullah, to end the terror strikes of Palestinian suicide bombers in order to bring about a cease-fire, which will then lead to an international conference on the Saudi-Arab peace proposal, has failed. The outcome is that the Saudis cannot uphold their part of the agreement reached by Abdullah and U.S. President George W. Bush. It is also clear to the Saudis that the movement that Arafat heads, Fatah, and its military wing, are directly linked to the terrorism. In other words, Arafat is involved. Moreover,...

Hamas leader says attacks against Israeli civilians to continue; Fatah distances itself from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Activists of Hamas will not stop their attacks against Israeli civilians until Israel stops similar attacks, the founde of the Palestinian resistance movement said in remarks published Saturday by Kuwait's al-Watan daily. Speaking by telephone from the Jordanian capital, Amman, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said that the resistance movement "would not give up its military operations against Zionist targets, including civilian targets." "I regret executing military operations against civilians but we do so because the Zionist enemy targets civilian Palestinian targets," he said. Hamas had...

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat faced new challenges to his leadership Thursday, with Hamas saying his Palestinian Authority had become a tool of Israeli occupation and had no place in any political reforms, while the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades vowed to press ahead with suicide attacks, despite Arafat’s condemnation. Less than a month after triumphantly emerging from an Israeli siege which restricted his movement but saw his popularity among his population soar, radical Palestinian organizations voiced discontent with the the very manner in which Arafat negotiated the end to the siege. In the Israeli coastal town of Herzliya, suspected Palestinian militants tried...