Free Sample Essays > Middle Eastern History
War with Iraq
in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and another man who waited with a car. When the accused said he was not working that evening, Abu-Antar offered to pay him for his services. During the night, the accused hid a package containing the explosive belt under the stairs in his living room. In the early hours of the morning, the accused opened the package and discovered that it was a bomb attached to ten plastic bottles. In order to safely transfer the explosive belt, he called his work manager and asked to transport his allegedly sick sister-in-law and her son from Nablus to the hospital in Ramallah, promising that he would reimburse any expenses when he returned. The accused placed the explosive belt under the stretcher in the ambulance and a battery on the ambulance monitor. Afterwards he picked up Dr. Assan, a dentist who had asked to accompany the accused on his trip to Ramallah. The accused also picked up his sister-in-law and her children. Together they drove towards Ramallah in the ambulance. The accused succeeded in crossing the Hawarah checkpoint but was stopped at the IDF checkpoint next to the Rama Bridge, where the explosive belt was discovered and safely detonated by IDF forces.
March 13, 2002
Arafat Backs "Karin A" Mastermind Shoubaki Continued Control of Security Funds
Recently, Israel conducted a counter-terrorist operation, codenamed Operation Guardian Fortress, against the Gaza Headquarters of the Palestinian Preventative Security Service (PPSS). During the operation, a PPSS document was discovered, addressed to senior commanders of the Palestinian security apparatus and dealing with the appointment of Col. Mahmoud Awdallah to replace Fouad Shoubaki as the titular head of the PA General Security's Financial Directorate.
Shoubaki, a close aide and financial advisor to Yasser Arafat, was responsible for establishing an extensive clandestine arms manufacturing industry on behalf of the PA, and for masterminding the purchase of the 'Karine A' arms ship and its cargo of heavy weapons which were intercepted last January by Israel in transit from Iran to the Palestinian Authority.
According to the newly revealed document, Awdallah was appointed personally by Arafat on 13 July to head the Financial Directorate, the position held formally by Shoubaki until he was implicated in the 'Karine A' affair. The document details how Shoubaki stood behind the selection of Awdallah, and further describes how, when the choice was brought into question, Arafat cast his full weight in support of the Awdallah.
The document also states that the incarcerated Shoubaki, "conducts many affairs of the central Financial Directorate via his cell-phone", while maintaining "a very close relationship" with Awdallah.
Evidence, in the form of an official PPSS document, now exists which indicates that Yasser Arafat continues to mislead the world community, by lending his full support to the undermining of the internationally-brokered understandings which served as the basis for Shoubaki's transfer from the 'Mukataa' (Arafat's cordoned-off headquarters in Ramallah) to a Jericho PA prison following Operation Defensive Shield last April, in order to stand trial for terrorism. Despite the formal appointment of a replacement, [next page]