FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
Al-Qaida
leader in Palestine soon to be revealed?
Terrorists' pamphlet demands non-Muslims vacate West Bank,
Gaza
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: March 7, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
JERUSALEM An al-Qaida leader as important as overall terror chief
Osama bin Laden and the group's Iraq leader Abu Musab Zarqawi will
soon reveal himself in the Palestinian territories and orchestrate
local and global jihad from the area, according to a pamphlet
distributed in the Gaza Strip and obtained by WorldNetDaily.
The pamphlet, signed by a group calling itself the Jaish al Jihad,
or Army of Jihad, claimed to speak for al-Qaida. It warned all
non-Muslims and foreign embassies to vacate the Palestinian areas
within one month.
"Is there now among us a person like Saladin, like Sheik Osama bin
Laden, like Abu Musab Zarqawi? The answer is yes. We have this man
and he will appear with the help of Allah very soon on the land of
Palestine," said the pamphlet, which was intercepted this week by
the Palestinian General Intelligence after being circulated in
southern Gaza.
The message continued: "We ask all foreigners who are not Muslims
to leave our holy Islamic land. We will fight all those who do not
believe that Allah is the one and only God. [We will fight] every
government that will not apply the rules of Allah and Islam and
that chooses to follow the rules of the West and the infidels that
bring corruption to our lives and religion like prostitution,
alcohol
and drugs."
The group threatened the Palestinian police and security services
not to interrupt its planned activities, adding, "We will fight all
the corrupted and unbelieving politicians. It will be a great war
for the purity of the land of Islam and Palestine."
Abbas: Signs of al-Qaida in Palestinian territories
The pamphlet's distribution coincided with remarks last week by
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that there were signs
al-Qaida has established itself in the Gaza Strip and West
Bank.
"We have indications about a presence of al-Qaida in Gaza and the
(West) Bank. This is intelligence information. We have not yet
reached the point of arrests," Abbas said, after months of denying
the global jihad group was able to infiltrate Palestinian
territory.
"The last security report I received was three days ago," Abbas
told the London-based al-Hayat newspaper. "This is the first time
that I've spoken about this subject. This is a very serious
matter."
Israel: Al-Qaida infiltrated after Gaza withdrawal, poised to
attack
Abbas' statements followed a series of warnings by senior Israeli
intelligence officials that al-Qaida operatives infiltrated Gaza
while the Rafah crossing, the main terminal at Gaza's border with
Egypt's Sinai desert, was opened for several days immediately after
Israel's withdrawal from the area this past August.
Egyptian officials attempted to close the border several times, but
Hamas and other terror groups managed to reopen the crossing, once
using a controlled explosion along the border fence and another
time ramming a dump truck through the border wall.
Egypt has admitted to difficulty eliminating al-Qaida cells in
Sinai suspected of involvement in recent terror attacks, including
the bombings in Sharm el Sheikh in July and Taba last year, which
together killed more than 100 people.
In September, Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi Farkash, chief of intelligence
for the Israeli Defense Forces, said al-Qaida infiltrated Gaza and
was interested in attacking Israel.
Security officials said they feared al-Qaida terrorists who made it
to Gaza will try to cross into the West Bank's Palestinian
population centers, which border many of Israel's major
cities.
Yaacov Amidror, former chief of research for Israeli military
intelligence, told WND al-Qaida may seek to use Gaza as a sanctuary
to plan attacks throughout the Middle East.
"Today, one of the weaknesses of al-Qaida is its lack of a safe
haven in the Middle East," Amidror said. "The new realities in Gaza
will make it one of the most convenient places for al-Qaida to base
their global operations. The Gaza Strip will become a paradise
because it will be an area in which the population and the terror
groups in power, especially Hamas, share the same ideology as
al-Qaida."
Al-Qaida and Hamas: Ideological partners?
Reuven Erlich, director of the Intelligence and Terrorism
Information Center at Israel's Center for Special Studies, stressed
the common ideological links between al-Qaida and Hamas, which is
currently forming the next PA government.
The link, Erlich said, can be emphasized through Palestinian cleric
Abdullah Azzam, who was al-Qaida's ideologue and until his death,
Osama bin Laden's spiritual mentor.
"We found Azzam's picture on Hamas posters from Gaza and a lot of
Hamas material," Erlich told WND. "Azzam's portrait in materials
reveal that he is perceived by Hamas as one of the four
'outstanding figures' of the Islamic 'struggle' in Palestine and
around the world."
Rice's border agreement has terrorists infiltrating Gaza
A senior Israel security official involved in the investigation of
possible al-Qaida operatives in Gaza told WND last week he fears
the global group can still make its way from Sinai into the Gaza
Strip due to major security lapses at the Rafah crossing following
a deal brokered in November by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice.
A recent WorldNetDaily probe found Rice's international border
agreement, which called for European monitors at the Rafah
crossing, is allowing terrorists to infiltrate the Gaza Strip,
where they are poised to attack Israel. WND also found the deal
allows Gaza-based terrorists freedom to travel into Sinai, where
they can meet with regional jihadists.
Rice's agreement, which Israel accepted reportedly after intense
American pressure, restricted the Jewish state to monitor the area
by camera, called for a European presence at the border station and
offered the Palestinians some veto power on vehicles and persons
entering Gaza.
New border rules stipulate Israel cannot restrict who leaves Gaza,
but it can ask the European monitors to delay for several hours
anyone crossing the border if Israel provides information
indicating an entrant may be a security threat.
Israeli security officials told WND the cameras at the border are
not sufficient to identify entrants, and they said the Palestinians
have been failing to supply accurate and timely lists of
individuals crossing into Gaza. They charged the Palestinians have
tampered with the names of entrants, accusing Palestinian border
workers of deliberately disguising the personal information of
terrorists crossing the border.
"The result," one security officials said, "is that the border
between Gaza and Egypt is nonexistent."
Indeed, several senior terrorists based in Gaza told WorldNetDaily
the past few weeks they were able to cross into the Sinai and back
without a problem.
One terror leader said he went to Egypt for "vacation."
Hamas chief Mahmoud al-Zahar's brother, Fadel, entered Gaza through
Rafah just day's after Rice's border deal was implemented,
reportedly bringing with him 13 other wanted terrorists. Fadel
Al-Zahar had been deported by Israel to Lebanon in 1991 after he
was accused of orchestrating attacks.