Saturday, September 22, 2007

22-Sep-07: Postscript to capture of Pal-Arab murder cell

This note is an important postscript to yesterday's report here about Israeli forces arresting a terror gang in Nablus after a well-publicized three day search which attracted wall-to-wall criticism outside Israel.

Today, Yom Kippur, Israeli security forces located the explosive belt intended to be used in the gang's terror attack. Haaretz says on its website tonight that the belt was found in a Tel-Aviv apartment occupied by Palestinians residing there illegally. They had smuggled it in parts from Nablus. Sappers blew it up in a controlled explosion. 


The location of the gang and of its weapons were based on intelligence information that a cell was intending to carry out a mass murder in central Israel during the High Holydays which are now underway. A similar report on the Yediot Aharanot website tonight (but, at this moment, sadly nowhere else) says one of the Palestinian Arabs arrested in this week's Nablus operation, Mahadi Ashur, had been working in Tel Aviv. Under interrogation, he provided Israeli security with the location of the bomb.

The
BBC, which true to form, has reported in detail on the inconvenience caused to the curfewed residents of Nablus in the past few days by the pre-emptive actions of the Israeli authorities without making any effort to give the context, is today publishing an article lauding the IDF for the surgical precision of its intelligence-based intervention, and the remarkable outcome which saved dozens of innocent livesIsraeli authorities are also said to be despatching an urgent note tonight to the 72 dark-eyed virgins waiting in paradise, explaining the unavoidably-delayed arrival of their jihadist client.

The previous paragraph is of course pure fantasy except for the part about the BBC's failure to report accurately, fairly or with appropriate context.

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