The Shin Bet says it has arrested three
Palestinians who were planning to attack U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and
International Convention Center in Jerusalem • Foreign terrorists were
also to take part in attack.
The International Convention
Center in Jerusalem
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Photo credit: Lior Mizrahi  |
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It could have been one of the worst terror
attacks in Israeli history: Two suicide bombers detonating themselves at
the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, followed by a truck
bomb exploding as rescue forces arrived. At the same time, suicide
bombers would also attack the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
This al-Qaida plan for a mega-attack in Israel
was thwarted by the Shin Bet security agency recently. On Wednesday,
the Shin Bet revealed that on Dec. 25 it had arrested three Palestinians
who were allegedly planning to take part in the plot. The three men
were identified as Iyad Khalid Abu Sara, 24, Rubin Abu-Nagma, 31, both
from east Jerusalem, and Ala Anam, 22, from a village in the Jenin area.
The two east Jerusalem residents were said to have used their Israeli
residents' cards to scope out and collect intelligence on targets.
Video credit: Reuters
The Shin Bet investigation found that the
three arrested men had been recruited by "Arib al-Sham" ("the
Outstanding One from Syria"), a terror operative in the Gaza Strip who
received an order for the attack from al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri.
The only connection between al-Zawahri and
"Arib al-Sham" and the terrorist plot comes from the testimonies given
by Abu Sara, Abu-Nagam and Anam during their interrogations.
A Shin Bet official said the plot was in
"advanced planning stages," but gave no further information on how close
the men came to carrying it out.
While a number of groups inspired by al-Qaida
have carried out attacks against Israel before, this appeared to mark
the first time an attack was directly planned by al-Qaida's leadership.
According to the Shin Bet, the Gaza terror
operative communicated with his three recruits via the Internet, using
Facebook and Skype. A Shin Bet official said on Wednesday that this
method of enlistment was typical of al-Qaida: "This is the modus
operandi of global jihad, to exploit the Internet to connect
terrorists."
Five foreign terrorists, whose identities and
nationalities were not disclosed, were to fly to Israel using fake
Russian passports to participate in the attack. It is not clear where
these men are located.
The suspects arrested by the Shin Bet had planned to travel to Syria, via Turkey, to receive military training.
"The plan moved forward very quickly," said
the Shin Bet official. "Within three months they enlisted, coordinated
their departures to go abroad, funds were transferred and experts were
consulted about preparing explosives. This quick pace did not allow us
to wait before arresting them."
The suspects had also planned to conduct
several other "standard" attacks, the Shin Bet said. One included
shooting out the tires of a bus traveling from Jerusalem to Maaleh
Adumim and then gunning down passengers and ambulance workers. Another
involved the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier from a Jerusalem bus stop
and planting a bomb to kill Jews in Jerusalem's Abu Tor neighborhood.
One of the suspects admitted to seeking to establish a Salafi terror
cell in Samaria.
Nevertheless, according to the Shin Bet, in
Judea and Samaria "the phenomenon of global jihad is still in its early
stages and can be stemmed through the efforts of us and the Palestinian
Authority."
Aviv Oreg, a former head of the Israel Defense
Forces intelligence unit that tracks al-Qaida, said the thwarted plot
marks the first time al-Qaida has been directly linked to an attempted
attack in Israel.
"This is the first time that Ayman al-Zawahri
was directly involved," he said. "For them, it would have been a great
achievement."
Oreg said that many foreign fighters fighting
Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime are from Chechnya and
predominantly Muslim parts of Russia, and speculated that the terrorists
with the phony documents would have been from there.
Al-Zawahri's location is unknown, but he was
last believed to be in Pakistan. He is the subject of an intense manhunt
and is not believed to personally go online or pick up the phone to
discuss terror plots, experts say.
Last year, a threat that began with a message
from the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to al-Zawahri led
to the closures of embassies across the Middle East and Africa. The
message, according to a U.S. official,essentially sought out
al-Zawahri's blessing to launch attacks.
A number of al-Qaida-inspired groups have
carried out rocket attacks from Gaza and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, as
well as shootings in Judea and Samaria. Israeli intelligence calls these
groups part of a "global jihad" movement.
Al-Qaida-inspired groups are on the rise in
the Gaza Strip. These groups accuse Hamas of being too lenient because
it has observed cease-fires with Israel and has stopped short of
imposing Islamic religious law, Shariah, in Gaza.
In Washington on Wednesday, State Department
spokeswoman Marie Harf said U.S. investigators and intelligence
officials were not yet able to corroborate the Israeli information, and
were declining to comment on specifics of the case.
"Obviously we're looking into it as well,"
Harf told reporters Wednesday. "I don't have reason to believe it's not
true. I just don't have independent verification."
She said there were no plans to evacuate the U.S.
Embassy in Tel Aviv and was not immediately aware of stepped-up security
measures there in light of the arrests.
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