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| Middle East |
| Return Battalions issue hit list... |
| 2002-07-27 |
| In retaliation of the Israeli assassination policy, which has reached scores of Palestinian activists and leaders, a Palestinian group has vowed to adopt a similar policy of targeting Israeli leaders. A hit list similar to that announced by the Israeli right wing government was also released. I missed that one... Agency France Press referred to the group, ''The Popular Army Front-Return Battalions'', as a ''a new Palestinian group'', and said that the group is believed to affiliated with the Fateh Movement, the largest resistance group in Palestine. The tactic adopted by the group is a new Palestinian strategy aimed at implementing a tit-for-tat action, and was provoked by the killing of Hamas commander and the killing and wounding of hundreds of civilians in a deadly Israeli attack on Gaza last Monday. The Jordanian embassy website says that "The Popular Army Front-Brigades of the Return made itself known when the Palestinian uprising, or Intifada erupted 10 months ago, and has since claimed responsibility for at least three anti-Israeli attacks." That was almost exactly a year ago, when they published a similar "hit list." The Palestinian group claimed Thursday's roadside shooting of an armed militant settler in the West Bank, according to a statement released in Beirut. The statement also said that it has a list comprised of "war criminals." "In response to the massacre of our people in Gaza ... we will take the law in our own hands and will not wait for any trial, nor statements nor denunciations since Israel is an artificial state essentially founded on terrorism and assassination," the group said. Looks like the group could be either trying to move up to the Big League or spewing the same bluster it burped up a year ago. If they've moved up, that would allow Yasser and crew to "disband" Tanzim or al-Aqsa and move their assets to a "different" organization, which'd be mighty magnanimous of them and still leave the snuffies in place and available. It listed 20 senior Israeli officials, often without their first names, and warned that its commandos would hunt them down and kill them. AFP said that the list included Sharon, his predecessor Ehud Barak; Interior Minister Uzi Landau; the new chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon; his predecessor Shaul Mofaz; Shin Bet security chief Avi Dichter; General Gershon Yitzhak, commanding officer of the West Bank division; the director-general of the Foreign Ministry, Avi Gil; and Sharon's former bureau chief, Uri Shani; as well as several other senior army officers and prominent Israelis. As a matter of strategy, this would be a horribly stupid move for the Paleos to make. When somebody on the list is killed, my guess would be that the Israelis would actually go after Sheikh Yassin and the Hamas politburo, not to mention a considerable number of PA Bigs. Since they're all Too Important to the Movement to get killed, I suspect that this announcement is either bluster or a loose cannon operation. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |