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Newsletter : 1fax0917.txt
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>JN Sept. 17, 2001
Poll 11/00: 73% of Palestinians Supported U.S. Suicide Attacks
By IsraelNationalNews.com
A poll by Beir Zeit University, in Ramallah in the Palestinian Authority in November 2000, and published in the official Palestinian Authority owned daily. revealed that "73% of Palestinians support military action against American targets in the region. [Al Hayat Al Jadida, on Nov. 11 2000.]
Beware the Second Wave
By Gamla News Service
DEBKAfile's intelligence sources report that Islamic militants under the command of Saudi multimillionaire terrorist Osama Bin Laden, the radical Egyptian Jihadi Islami, Iraqi military intelligence and other Middle East groups, stand poised for a second wave of horrendous attacks in America. An estimated 30 to 50 suicide-killers are waiting inside the U.S. for their orders to strike.
This time, while again aiming for the president, the White House and Capitol Hill, they will also go for a broad spectrum of what they consider strategic targets, such as airports, oil fields and oil installations, sensitive military and intelligence facilities, warships and carriers.
Bin Laden's Scattered Legions
By Gamla News Service
Al Qaeda ('the Base'), the militant Islamic movement that the Saudi terrorist tycoon Osama Bin Laden founded in 1990, is estimated by DEBKAfile's terror experts to number no more than 12,000 fighting men scattered round the world, mainly in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Chechenya, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgistan, Tadjikistan and Lebanon.
Some 2,500 live in the United States, many of them U.S. nationals, counting also members of Al Qaeda's fraternal terrorist group, the fundamentalist Egyptian Jihad Islami. Many are 'Afghan Arabs' who fought with Bin Laden against the Russians in Afghanistan in the '80s.
Bin Laden moves his troops from site to site as needed, usually by chartered commercial flights. With reserves, he can field some 17,000 Islamic militants to pursue what he conceives as his mission: to defeat the United States and its dominant influence as a world superpower. Most bin Laden operations are large-scale yet precisely pinpointed to achieve that end.
His annual budget is estimated as $125 million, which comes out of revenues from family-owned companies. His relatives are close to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. So as to save them and the Saudi ruler embarrassment, he has invested his stock in front companies registered in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Most of his investments are in satellite networks and cell phone companies.
Bin Laden is the first terrorist chief to operate in global strategic terms. He differs substantially from Yasir Arafat in that his thinking and targeting are global and ideological. All of his associations are with radical Islamic groups and figures.
Digging into his roots, DEBKAfile discovered Bin Laden's first mentor to have been an obscure Palestinian sheikh who lived in Hableh near Tulkarm and Jenin, called Abdallah Azzam. Founder of an Islamic liberation movement called Haraketh al-Tahariyeh al-Islami, this sheikh, for the first time in the 20th century, called for an Islamic struggle on a global, not merely a national, footing. He urged Muslims to fight for world domination and the eclipse of infidel rule. Although a Palestinian himself, Azzam mocked Arafat's PLO as inconsequential.
Sharon Demands '48 Hours' of Calm
By Laurie Kassman (VOA-Jerusalem)
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday called on Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat to end the violence, and in return, he will halt army operations in the West Bank and Gaza. Sharon's statement comes after Israeli tanks moved into the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Sharon said he was ready to stop Israeli incursions into Palestinian territories, if Arafat declared a cease-fire. The Israeli leader said, if it remained quiet for 48 hours, he would give the green light for Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to meet with Arafat to work out a longer truce and cooling-off period.
The Sharon statement comes after a drive-by shooting late Saturday night in a Jerusalem neighborhood, which killed one Israeli and wounded another. Within a few hours, Israeli tanks and troops moved into the nearby West Bank city of Ramallah. Gun battles raged for several hours, before the Israeli troops pulled back.
Tensions are running high since the terrorist attacks in the United States. Israel has been on high alert, shutting down its airspace for more than 24 hours and sealing off the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Most Palestinians have expressed their outrage, or remained silent, while some groups have organized candle-light vigils to offer their condolences. But the Foreign Press Club, based in Israel, has accused the Palestinian Authority of harassing photographers and TV crews trying to film some Palestinians celebrating the terrorist attacks.
