3-Jan-14: Behind the bombing of an Israeli city bus

Soon after the Bat Yam bus bomb exploded. [Image Source]

Ynet says the Shin Bet, in collaboration with the IDF and police, arrested 14 men for involvement in the blast on a bus in Bat Yam last week.

The main suspects who were arrested are Sahada Taamri, 24, Hamadi Taamri, 21, Sami Harimi, 20, and Yousef Salamah, 22. Ten other suspects are held for involvement in less critical details of the plot.

During the past several months, the group set out to execute a massive terror attack against Israelis. The explosives were prepared by the Taamri brothers and by Salamah, using two kilograms of improvised detonation material, plus nails and screws for maximum destructive impact on human flesh and organs, plus a switch activated by cellphone remotely. Harimi hid the bomb in a bag which he took with him on December 22 to a community in the southern Hebron Hills. From there, accompanied by a Bedouin Arab Israeli citizen, he drove to Jaffa. There he got on bus 240, hid the bomb, got off some minutes later, and then dialed the cellphone attached to the bomb, triggering the explosion. Fortunately, as we noted ["22-Dec-13: As Palestinian Arab terror attacks grow in frequency and intensity, Tel Aviv-area bus is bombed"] the outcome was far less deadly than the terrorists had wished it to be.

Forensic examination of the post-attack bus [Image Source]

Two hours after the explosion, the Shin Bet had already detained the first of the suspects. Harimi, arrested several days later in Bethlehem, admitted to his role in the plot and confessed that he and his fellow terrorist thugs had been planning to carry out a larger attack in Tel Aviv a few days after Bat Yam. They were arrested before the plan could be played out. One of the Taamri brothers led the security forces to a cache of explosives, some 25kg, near his house.

We know a little today about the backgrounds of the would-be massacre agents. Harimi worked as a waiter in the popular Aboulafia bakery in Jaffa, though lacking a work permit. Yousef Salamah is a police officer with the Palestinian Authority. The recent celebrations led by the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, make it certain that Salamah's moonlighting will hardly cause him career problems when, which is a certainty, he re-enters the workforce after serving some portion of the time to which he likely to be sentenced soon. Nor will the fact that, employed by the Palestinian Authority, his fighting allegiance is owed to the hyper-religious Palestinian Islamic Jihad death cultists.