MER FLASHBACK to 25 June 2001: Months before what is now
known as "9/11" MER published these articles indicating that a major
strike by Osama Bin-Laden against the U.S. was imminent and that the
Israelis were more determined than ever to subjugate the Palestinians.
We wrote at the time: "In these conditions any spark can ignite the
blaze; and sometimes such giant fires consume more than was originally
anticipated, sometimes even those who start them."
HAMAS VOWS REVENGE ATTACKS AGAINST ISRAEL
By SAUD ABU RAMADAN
GAZA, June 24 (UPI) -- Hundreds of Islamic resistance movement Hamas
supporters and mourners Sunday urged their movement's militants to carry out
more revenge attacks against Israel.
They chanted "revenge ... revenge" while they carried the remains of
Ismail Ma'sawabi, the suicide bomber who blew himself up on Friday, killing
himself and two Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza Strip.
Masked young men wearing white shrouds wearing symbolic explosive belts
led the mourners and carried the bomber's coffin wrapped with a Palestinian
flag.
One of the masked men, a member of a Hamas armed wing, said Hamas would
never stop its attacks against Israel, adding that dozens of suicide bombers
are ready to carry out attacks.
He said that Hamas rejects the US-brokered truce that was reached on June
13, adding that Hamas also rejects the security meetings between Israeli and
Palestinian security officials to implement the cease-fire.
A high-ranking Palestinian security official who asked not to be
identified said the Palestinian authority security forces have arrested
several armed members of different military groups including Hamas and
Islamic Jihad -- a key condition for peace set by Israel.
The official said that the Palestinian security forces also confiscated
weapons including mortars and shells, and carried out measures on the ground
to prevent attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian authority accused Israel for violating CIA
director George Tenet's cease-fire deal after a Fatah militant was killed in
an explosion into a public telephone box in the West Bank town of Nablus.
"Returning to the policy of assassinations shows that Israel insists to
continue its escalation and military plan to destroy the Palestinian
authority," said Ahmed Abdel Rahman, chief of PA cabinet.
BIN LADEN "PLANS NEW ATTACKS IN TWO WEEKS"
By Michael Theodoulou in Nicosia and Michael Evans
[The Times of London, 25 June}: OSAMA BIN LADEN, the world’s
most-wanted terrorist, is planning a big attack on American and Israeli
targets within the next two weeks, a London-based Arab satellite
television station has claimed.
American armed forces have been on full alert for three days after
receiving intelligence reports about potential terrorist action linked
to the exiled Saudi dissident, who has lived in Afghanistan since 1996.
Warships in Bahrain, headquarters of the US 5th Fleet, were ordered to
sea on Friday and three American amphibious vessels left the Red Sea
port of Aqaba on Saturday, cutting short a military exercise in Jordan.
The evidence of a terrorist campaign came from an Islamabad-based
correspondent for the Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC). Bakri
Attrani, the MBC correspondent, said that he had been taken by car
across the Pakistan border into Afghanistan, where he met bin Laden.
The terrorist leader, whom the Americans suspect of masterminding the
bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed
224 people, did not make any direct statement to Mr Attrani, but the
correspondent reported that bin Laden’s supporters had said that in the
next two weeks “a severe blow is expected against USA and Israeli
interests worldwide”.
A spokesman for MBC in London said the correspondent had reported that
bin Laden seemed pleased when his supporters gave the warning.
MBC, which is owned by Waleed al-Ibrahim, whose sister is married to
King Fahd of Saudia Arabia, said that bin Laden did not speak himself
because of the restrictions imposed on him by Afghanistan’s Taleban
rulers.
Mr Attrani said: “There is a major state of mobilisation among the
Osama bin Laden forces. It seems that there is a race for who will
strike first. Will it be the United States or Osama bin Laden?”
However, the Taleban authorities rejected the reports of a terrorist
attack. They said that bin Laden’s activities were under control. A
Foreign Ministry spokesman said that it was not possible for him to
organise action against another country.
Mr Attrani met bin Laden in the desert. He travelled for three hours in
a car with blackened windows so that he could not see where he was
going.
Among bin Laden’s supporters present were Abu Hatas al-Masri and Ayman
al-Zawahiri, leaders of Egypt’s outlawed Jihad group, who have joined
forces with the Saudi dissident.
Mr Attrani said that he and his crew were searched before being allowed
to see bin Laden. During the meeting, bin Laden’s supporters did not
give any details about the planned attacks. The reports received by
American Intelligence also referred to a “non-specific but credible
threat”.
Last month an American jury convicted four followers of bin Laden of
plotting to bomb the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Twelve Americans
were among those who were killed in the attacks.
Last week another US court indicted 14 suspects — 13 Saudis and a
Lebanese — for the terrorist bombing in 1996 of a US barracks in Saudi
Arabia, which killed 19 US servicemen.
A videotape emerged last week, which showed bin Laden telling his
supporters: “It’s time to penetrate America and Israel and hit them
where it hurts most.”
The Taleban authorities claimed that it was a fake. END
The Israelis are more determined than ever to either subjugate or
co-opt the Palestinians. They pursue these means of course
through brutal repression and military occupation; means that
co-optation could further mask and disguise (the real goal) but not
really change. They desperately tried the later after
the Gulf War and in order to end the first Intifada; but couldn't bring
about the result they wanted at Camp David last year; just as many
experts had predicted. No matter how much they twisted and bribed
the Arafat Regime, it simply lacked the credibility and strength to do
what it was ordered to do no matter how internally co-opted and corrupt
it has always been.
The Arab regimes, especially the Hashemites and the al-Sauds, more
desperately than ever are battling to survive. The Americans --
and to a much lesser extent the Europeans -- are their patrons and
protectors; and of course they must pay a considerable price for
such. So too the Egyptians; but Egypt is not a royal family
it is a clique of personalities centered around a strong Army now
coupled with a small business elite that personally benefits from the
American connection.
As for the Palestinians, their predicament is grave. While the
people more desperately than ever want an end to their bondage, some
semblance of justice, and of course real independence; they know that
their situation is not one in which they can expect any of these
results any time soon. The regime that oppresses them has in fact
sold and squandered away many of their rights as well as much of their
territory, actually helping create today's apartheid-like
predicament. The Palestinian people are today essentially doubly
occupied -- their "autonomous population centers" and Gaza practically
prisons with the Palestinian "Authority" the first layer of control;
the Israeli Army the outer surrounding layer (with the Shinbet and CIA
connecting the two)..
As for the Arafat Authority, like the other "clients regimes" of the
region it too is primarily interested in its own survival and huge
payments. It too is a small, corrupt, self-centered clique whose
key members have personally benefited greatly with the money suitcases
of PLO days and the V.I.P. rewards that flowed from signing Oslo.
The Israelis, as well as the Americans, as well as the above mentioned
Arab regimes, have all conspired since the Gulf War and Intifada I to
create some kind of self-perpetuating "Palestinian regime" to
mirror how the rest of the surrounding Arab populations are held in
check.
Secretary of State, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Colin
Powell leaves today for the the region, well-briefed yesterday by Prime
Minister, former head of the Army, General Ariel
Sharon. The region is arming at an escalating pace -- good
of course for the American war industries who are by far the largest
suppliers of arms to the area -- and preparations for conflict
are escalating; even as the politicians play the hypnotizing "peace
process" and "even-handedness" tunes that amazingly are still listened
to by many.
Powell is not really going to see the Palestinians -- that's just the
public facade. His real business is in Cairo, Amman, and
Riyadh.
There he will instruct the client regimes how the game is going to be
played, what the Israelis are likely to do to the Palestinians as soon
as Sharon gets the excuse he so desperately is maneuvering for.
Powell will "explain" how the regimes are going to have to play ball by
the American rules behind-the-scenes, no matter what might be said in
public or what gestures might be made to assuage public opinion.
And Powell will "explain" that this is really their only sound choice
in the future now ahead as otherwise they too may become victims of the
fire that is yet to come.
Oh yes, by way of ps, a few hundred Muslims and a scattered few
followers were outside the White House yesterday afternoon holding a
noisy and energetic demonstration judged by the past. Their
leaders, the "client organizations" sponsored by these very same
"client regimes", even managed this time to get themselves very
peacefully arrested in a way that appeared all too pre-arranged with
the police, or so it seemed. Quite possibly the
embarrassments of repeatedly saying they would do so, and then never
actually doing so, coupled with growing pressures from the grassroots,
caused them this time to actually do it this time; albeit in the most
peaceful and compliant of ways.
But the real tests are now to come. Why did only a couple of
leaders sit down and then walk calmly to the paddy wagon? Why did
they not call on their followers to do the same -- many seemed
ready? Why did they not have any allies with them -- there are so
many others including Jews and Israelis who would have responded to
such a call and that really would have been far more significant?
And most of all, are they in fact going to follow up this largely photo
opportunity yesterday -- something they are so well-known for -- by
repeating the scene with greater numbers every week as today's
historical situation cries out for; are they going to call for Muslims
and people of conscience to rise up in peaceful civil disobedience
protest around the country as is urgently needed; are they going to
call out to those in the Arab world to insist that their own
governments break relations with Israel, suspend Israel from the U.N.
General Assembly, and defensively arms themselves so that the Israelis
will be deterred from doing more of what they have done in the past and
are threatening to further escalate?
This is no time to be lulled into believing the even thedeceptive and
dishonest "peace process" is back. Indeed it was always a
"domination process"; and it was always a desperate gamble by the
Israelis and the Americans that they could still contain the forces in
the region who are themselves increasingly desperate to throw off the
shackles that so terribly repress and imprison them. And not only
in the once historic Holy Land of Palestine. END
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