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| Middle East |
| Al-Aqsa faction says truce over |
| 2003-07-03 |
| A faction of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades declared Thursday that it would no longer abide by the cease-fire agreed days ago by the major militant groups, following the killing earlier in the day of one of its activists by Israeli security forces in Qalqailyah. Border Police troops arrested Ibrahim Mansour, the head of the Al-Aqsa Brigades in Qalqilyah, and shot dead his aide, Mahmoud Shawer, during an early morning raid in the city. "We in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades announce we are not complying with the cease-fire as long as the occupation continues raiding our lands and killing our people," a local leader of the group shouted through loudspeakers as Shawar was buried. "We warn [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon's government that our response will come quickly and will be like an earthquake within 24 hours." They're strapping on the belts. The army said that both Palestinians had been armed. Palestinian sources said that Shawer been wounded in the leg during his escape attempt, and he was found dead with gunshot wounds to the head once the troops withdrew. "You'll never take me alive.........." The IDF had linked the two to a shooting attack on a car travelling inside Israel, just across the Green Line from Qalqilyah, some two weeks ago. A seven-year-old girl was killed in the attack and three of her family members were wounded. Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a senior aide to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, called Shawer's killing an "assassination" and accused Israel of trying "to bring us back to the cycle of action and reaction." No, it's the cycle of "cause and effect". |
| Posted by:Steve |