M.E.: 'These people were here to help us'

Gaza Strip Blast Kills Three Americans
IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip - A remote-controlled bomb exploded under a U.S. diplomatic convoy Wednesday, ripping apart an armored van and killing three Americans in an unprecedented attack on an official U.S. target.


The bombing, which also wounded an American, will likely intensify U.S. pressure on the Palestinian Authority to take action against militant groups. The U.S. Embassy advised U.S. citizens to leave the Gaza Strip after the attack.


There was no claim of responsibility. But if Palestinian militants were to blame, it could signal a dramatic change in strategy. While targeting Israeli soldiers and civilians for years, groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad repeatedly insist they do not target U.S. officials — apparently to avoid a harsh retribution from the Americans and the anger of Palestinian officials trying to work with Washington.


Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat condemned the attack as an "awful crime" and said he ordered an investigation.


The U.S. State Department said the three dead were security personnel accompanying diplomats from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, who were heading to interview Palestinian candidates for Fulbright scholarships.


The bomb detonated around 10:15 a.m. (4:15 a.m. EDT) Wednesday as the three-car convoy, escorted by Palestinian police, was heading south on Gaza's main road just after entering the Gaza Strip from Israel. In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Brooke Summers said the blast came from a "previously planted explosive device."


After the first two cars — including the police escort — went by, the third car had just passed when the blast went off near a gas station, said Mohammed Radwan, a Palestinian taxi driver who was at the station at the time.


"The first two cars drove quickly and stopped far from the explosion. Palestinian security people jumped out of the car and rushed to the car that had blown up ... I saw two people covered with blood lying next to the car," he said.


The blast gouged a deep crater into the unpaved stretch of road. The attack tore the van in half and flipped it over, leaving the wreckage twisted with the tires up in the air. The pavement was stained with blood and littered with bits of flesh that were collected by Palestinian paramedics.


An AP reporter saw a gray wire with an on-off switch leading from the scene of the attack to a small concrete room at the side of the road. The blast was about a mile south of the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza.


U.S. diplomatic sources said the people in the targeted car were security guards for the U.S. diplomats traveling in the other vehicles. Palestinian officials said the diplomats were U.S. monitors.


Israeli counterterrorism expert said it was the first attack on an official U.S. target in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in recent memory.


Attacks on U.S. targets have taken place in other other Arab countries, including Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and now Iraq. In October last year, an American administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development was gunned down in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in an assassination thought linked to the al-Qaida network.


But in the bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, there has been an unofficial policy of "hands-off" the Americans — though 45 Americans, many with dual citizenship, have been caught in the crossfire in the past three years of fighting.


The Palestinian militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups, responsible for the bulk of the attacks on Israelis in the past three years of fighting, have said they have no interest in taking aim at non-Israeli targets.


Islamic Jihad spokesman Nafez Nazzam said Wednesday after the attack that his group "has no intention to extend a cycle of confrontation with any nation ... except the occupation. Our battle is with the occupiers only."


"In the land of Palestine, it's not proper to target Americans nor any other nations," he said.





But resentment against the United States has been growing steadily, with many Palestinians complaining that Washington sides with Israel.

U.S. convoys travel in Gaza almost daily, and are easily identifiable — usually bearing diplomatic license plates — and mostly take the same route on the main north-south road in the strip.

Several hours after the bombing, U.S. investigators arrived at the scene and photographed the mangled van. About a dozen Palestinian youths threw stones at the investigators as about 200 Palestinians looked on.

As the angry crowd chanted "Allahu Akbar" — "God is great" — the Americans rushed back into their cars, surrounded by nervous Palestinian security officers with rifles raised. Palestinian police beat some people in the crowd while pushing the spectators back, and the cars sped away under a hail of stones.

The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv did not release the names of the three Americans killed. The wounded American was initially treated at a Gaza hospital and was later transferred to Soroka Hospital in the southern Israeli town of Beersheba.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia denounced the attack. "We strongly condemn this incident and we will conduct an investigation and we will follow it to find the source of this attack," he told reporters in the West Bank.

Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat suggested the blast would undercut the long-standing Palestinian plea for international supervision in the West Bank and Gaza.

"These are American monitors that have come here at our request, Erekat said. "These people were here to help us."

Israeli officials said the attack underscored the need to dismantle Palestinian militant groups — a requirement of the stalled, U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan that Palestinian leaders have refused to carry out.

"What happened is evidence that no one is immune, unfortunately, to Palestinian terrorism, even when we are talking about the representatives of ... the United States, whose entire goal was and remains to advance a peace agreement between the sides," said Zalman Shoval, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

 

The Palestinian youths at the sight seemed to approve.

 

Three Arrested in U.S. Convoy Bombing
By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer

JEBALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip - Palestinian police arrested three members of a small militant group Thursday in connection with a deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic convoy, security officials said.

Witnesses said militants and police exchanged fire for about 10 minutes during the raid.

The three suspects are members of the Popular Resistance Committees, a group of dozens of armed men, including many former members of the Palestinian security forces and disgruntled followers of Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s Fatah (news - web sites) movement, said the officials. Officials initially gave the number of people detained as five.


No Palestinian group has claimed responsibility for Wednesday's bombing, which killed three U.S. security guards and wounded a fourth. It was the first deadly attack against U.S. official targets in the Palestinian areas and was likely to increase U.S. pressure on the Palestinian leadership to move against militants.


President Bush (news - web sites) held the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) partially responsible, saying Wednesday that "Palestinian authorities should have acted long ago to fight terror in all its forms."


Involvement by the Popular Resistance Committees, which has issued a statement saying it was not involved in the attack, could prove particularly embarrassing to Arafat because of the group's links to the security forces.


Palestinians often accuse the United States of siding with Israel, but officials are careful not to cross the line of open hostility to Washington, combining their criticism with appeals for U.S. aid and protection. Arafat and Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia condemned Wednesday's bombing and promised swift action.


Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, violent groups behind scores of deadly bombings against Israelis, also distanced themselves from the attack.


Also Thursday, Israeli forces backed by 50 armored vehicles raided another section of the Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza-Egypt border in search of weapons smuggling tunnels. It was the third army raid of a Rafah neighborhood in a week.


A member of the Palestinian security forces was killed and 14 people were wounded in sporadic exchanges of fire, hospital officials said. Two minors were among those hurt.


In Wednesday's attack in Gaza, assailants detonated a remote-controlled bomb packed with dozens of pounds of explosives.


The blast smashed the heavy vehicle, flipped it over and left a crater in the road, the main north-south highway in Gaza. Two of the guards inside were killed instantly, said U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer. Another died on the way to a Gaza hospital, and a fourth was treated in Gaza and then flown to a hospital in the Israeli city of Beersheba, where he was in stable condition.


An FBI (news - web sites) team of investigators and forensics experts arrived in Israel on Thursday to investigate the bombing, along with Israeli police.


FBI agents do not intend to go into Gaza immediately. Instead, they will rely on the Israelis to collect and preserve evidence, with the FBI doing the detailed examinations of what is found, FBI officials in Washington said. On Wednesday, U.S. investigators at the scene were greeted by rock-throwing Palestinians.


The three Americans killed were identified as John Branchizio, 36; Mark T. Parson, 31; and John Martin Linde Jr., 30. They had been hired through a contract with DynCorp, a Virginia-based security firm.


The diplomats in the convoy, escorted by Palestinian police, were heading to Gaza to interview Palestinian academics who were seeking Fulbright scholarships to teach or study in the United States.


In the Jebaliya camp, Palestinian police were greeted by gunfire when they arrived in blocks 7 and 8 around midnight. Security forces searched seven homes before making the arrests. One of the suspects was identified as 25-year-old Ahmed Saker.





The Popular Resistance Committees was formed at the end of 2000, three months after the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The group consists of dozens of armed men, mostly Fatah breakaways or former members of the security forces. Other factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, are also represented.

The group believes the use of force is the only way to end Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites). In the past three years of fighting, the group has blown up three Israeli Merkava tanks with powerful remote-controlled bombs — the same method used in Wednesday's attack.

Following the bombing, the U.S. government advised its citizens to leave the Gaza Strip. Kurtzer said from 200 to 400 Americans, some of them of Palestinian descent, work there, many for aid groups.

U.S. diplomats at meetings in the West Bank were returned to Jerusalem, said a U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity.

U.S. and Israeli officials said the attack underscored the need to dismantle Palestinian militant groups — a requirement of the stalled, U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan that Palestinian leaders have refused to carry out.

"The failure to create effective Palestinian security forces dedicated to fighting terror continues to cost lives," Bush said in a statement. "There must be an empowered prime minister who controls all Palestinian forces — reforms that continue to be blocked by Yasser Arafat."

It was the second attack this year on an American diplomatic vehicle in Gaza, U.S. officials said, pointing to an incident in June in which no one was injured.

U.S. convoys of armored black and silver Chevrolet Suburbans travel in Gaza almost daily and usually take the same route. The convoys are easily identifiable as American, though they don't fly American flags.

The Haaretz daily on Thursday quoted Palestinian security officials as saying they have repeatedly warned American diplomats that their travel arrangements aren't safe. American officials routinely inform Palestinian security officials in advance of travel plans.

However, U.S. diplomatic official said they had no specific warnings that an attack was being planned. The official noted that there are no alternate routes to Gaza City, other than the north-south road.

 

Seems likes the Palestinians aren't blaming Likud, glynch.

 

It's difficult to predict how the stars may align. Changes in PA leadership, possible changes in Israeli gov (Sharon's weakening), this agreement, exhausted populations on both sides...we'll see.