TerrorismIsrael facing a growing al-Qaeda challenge
What appears to be the first al Qaeda plot against targets inside Israel was thwarted last December when the Israeli security services arrested three Palestinians — two of them East Jerusalem residents with Israeli identification cards — who planned simultaneous attacks on the International Conference Center in Jerusalem and the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. The three men were arrested on 25 December, but a court-ordered gag order was lifted last Wednesday. Analysts say that the growing influence of al Qaeda affiliates in Iraq and Syria, the foothold the organization has gained in the Sinai Peninsula, and the growing presence of Salafists in the West Bank, made it only a question of time before al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist acts against Israeli targets would be hatched.
Al Qaeda expands operations into Israel // Source: presstv.ir
What appears to be the first al Qaeda plot against targets inside Israel was thwarted last December when the Israeli security services arrested three Palestinians — two of them East Jerusalem residents with Israeli identification cards — who planned simultaneous attacks on the International Conference Center in Jerusalem and the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.
The three men were arrested on 25 December, but a court-ordered gag order was lifted last Wednesday.
The three suspects are Iyad Abu Sa’ara, 24, of East Jerusalem’s Ras al-Khamis neighborhood, Roubeen al-Najma, 31, of Abu Tor in East Jerusalem and Alaa Ranem, 22, of Al-Aqaba, a village near Jenin.
Abu Sa’ara, who appears to be the organizer of the cell, was planning on receiving some training from Jihadists in Syria, and was looking to buy a roundtrip airline ticket from Israel to Turkey.
Al Qaeda operatives re already working with Islamists and Bedouins in the Sinai Peninsula, but their actions there are aimed against the military government in Cairo and in support of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Analysts say that the growing influence of al Qaeda affiliates in Iraq and Syria, the foothold the organization has gained in the Sinai, and the growing presence of Salafists in the West Bank, made it only a question of time before al Qaeda-inspired terrorist acts against Israeli targets would be hatched.
Fox News reports that the terrorists planned to strike the Jerusalem target again once emergency services arrived. Israeli security agency Shin Bet said there were additional plans for bus attacks, shootings, and kidnappings in the pipeline.
It is not clear how close the terror cell was to carrying out the plot, but Shin Bet sources told Fox News the men had been recruited online by Gaza-based operative Arib a-Shaham, who answers directly to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born successor to Usama Bin Laden.
Analysts note that the three key members of the plot had joined al Qaeda after becoming radicalized online, and that they chose to align themselves with al Qaeda rather than local militant anti-Israel Palestinian organizations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reports that about twenty Arab Israelis and thirty Palestinians have been fighting for al Qaeda-linked militias in Syria.
