|
Israel stems suicide bombings { April 5 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/05/international/middleeast/05BOMB.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/05/international/middleeast/05BOMB.html
April 5, 2003
Israel Stems Suicide Bombings, but at a Cost
By GREG MYRE
NABLUS, West Bank, April 4 — Amid a wave of suicide bombings last summer, Ali Ajouri, a young militia leader, dispatched a pair of young attackers who blew themselves up in a rundown Tel Aviv neighborhood in July, killing two Israelis and three foreign workers.
The attack was similar to dozens of others that preceded it. But the Israeli response — singling out Mr. Ajouri, his family and his city — was startlingly different. It provided one of the first examples of the relentless, uncompromising approach that the Israeli government says has significantly reduced suicide bombings since they reached a frenzied peak a year ago.
At 3 a.m., two days after the Tel Aviv bombing, Israeli forces were at the front door of the Ajouri family's three-story cinderblock home in the Askar refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus. The more than 20 members of the extended family were ordered outside in their pajamas, and troops brought the house crashing down with explosives.
While Mr. Ajouri remained in hiding, Israel's crackdown continued with the arrests of three of his siblings and their 66-year-old father on the suspicion of complicity in the attack.
The father and one brother were released. But a military court convicted one of Mr. Ajouri's sisters, Intisar, 35, of sewing bomb belts for the attackers and ruled that a brother, Kifah, 30, also assisted. Both were deported to the Gaza Strip, where they are living today in the basement of a Red Cross office.
Three weeks after the Tel Aviv bombing, the Israelis located Mr. Ajouri, 23, as he and a fellow militant in the Aksa Martyrs Brigades moved one night between two villages north of Nablus. Attack helicopters and armored vehicles unleashed blasts of gunfire, killing them both.
Israel's tactics have drawn criticism from the Palestinians, human rights groups and even the United States, Israel's closest ally. The measures — house demolitions, mass arrests, nightly raids, curfews, stringent travel restrictions and the construction of a fence separating Israel from the West Bank — have raised questions about what is a legitimate response to suicide bombing.
But for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government and the country's security forces, the bottom line is that the measures have been increasingly effective against Palestinian militants.
In the 30 months of the current conflict, Palestinian bombers unleashed almost 90 attacks. But in the past four months, they have struck in Israel just three times.
"The methods we've used have proved themselves successful over the past year," said Capt. Jacob Dallal, an army spokesman. "We're still seeing dozens of attempted attacks each month, but we've found ways to stop almost all of them."
The Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, has condemned suicide bombings. But Israel says his security forces have never made a serious effort to crack down on the three groups responsible for almost all of the attacks — Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades.
Palestinians have criticized Israel's tactics as unduly harsh and sweeping, complaining at the injustice of taking aim at all of Palestinian society, not just militants.
But the militants themselves concede that the measures have made it harder to stage attacks. "We still have the men and the weapons," said a leader of the radical Islamic group Hamas, who asked to be identified as Abu Ahmed. "The problem now is getting them to the target."
During the most intensive wave of attacks, in March 2002, Israel seemed overwhelmed by the onslaught. The 16 suicide bombings that month killed 80 Israelis, prompting Mr. Sharon to send the army charging into Palestinian cities throughout the West Bank.
The troops withdrew six weeks later, but as bombings increased the soldiers returned in June and have remained. The net result is that bombings are down, and Palestinians frustrations are up.
The latest arrest sweep came in response to a suicide bombing last Sunday in the coastal town of Netanya, which killed the attacker and wounded more than 30 Israelis at a cafe.
On Wednesday, Israeli troops entered a refugee camp in Tulkarm, a West Bank town not far from Netanya, and ordered all boys and men from age 15 to 45 into the center of the camp.
At least 1,000 Palestinians were rounded up, with almost all sent in trucks to another refugee camp and told not to return home for three days, as Israeli forces continued searching. Many slept in olive groves.
Israel said today that it had captured the man it was seeking, Anwar Aliyan, the local leader of Islamic Jihad, the group that carried out last Sunday's attack. The troops then pulled out and the male residents returned.
Back in Nablus, Mr. Ajouri's father, Muhammad, said he and his family were not aware of his son's role in Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a band of fighters loosely linked to Mr. Arafat's Fatah movement.
Mr. Ajouri left the family home — abandoning his new bride — and had no contact with his family in his final four months, according to his father.
Muhammad Ajouri said he did not support his son's actions, though a picture of Mr. Ajouri, clutching an AK-47 rifle, rests on the windowsill of the family's home, which has been largely rebuilt.
"I often questioned Ali about what he was doing, but he was secretive and wouldn't answer," Muhammad Ajouri said. "He chose his own path."
Since the United States attacked Iraq more than two weeks ago, Israel has been mostly calm, with no Israelis killed in political violence. However, more than 20 Palestinians, both militants and civilians, have been killed by the Israeli Army during the same period.
The United States State Department's annual human rights report, released this week, said Israel's overall record in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was poor, and accused Israel of "numerous, serious human rights abuses."
Since March 2002, the number of Palestinians in custody has reached more than 5,000, according to B'tselem, an Israeli human rights group.
The figure includes those convicted of involvement in political violence, as well as some 1,100 in "administrative detention," which allows them to be held without charge.
Israel says the intelligence gleaned from detainees has helped the security forces capture more than 150 would-be suicide bombers.
"You need good, fresh intelligence to act against the terrorists, and the only way to get it is to have a strong presence in the West Bank," said Boaz Ganor, head of Israel's International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism.
"Intelligence grows old very quickly because every time you make arrests or kill someone involved in the suicide attacks, these people are replaced very quickly by new faces," he said.
Palestinians have consistently supported the use of suicide bombings in the current uprising, with 70 percent to 80 percent approving of them in past and current opinion polls.
Today, however, the debate has grown more complicated, with moderates saying the attacks undermine the Palestinian cause, while militants claim that extreme tactics are needed to keep pressure on Israel.
On the streets of Nablus, during a noisy funeral for a Hamas leader killed in an Israeli raid, militants said the issue remained unresolved.
A leader of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades said the group had relented to pressure from the Palestinian Authority and agreed not to carry out attacks in Israel for now.
"But Israel keeps killing our people, so it will be hard for us to keep this pledge," said the man, who gave his nom de guerre, Abu Mujahid. Two grenades were strapped to his belt, and a pistol was tucked inside it.
Meanwhile, the Hamas leader, Abu Ahmed, said his group would press ahead with its bombing campaign, though he acknowledged Israel had made it extremely difficult.
Israel has faced great challenges in preventing attacks from the West Bank, because the border exists only on maps. Israel's web of checkpoints blocks the roads, but suicide bombers often need travel only a few miles over dirt trails to reach Israeli cities.
Over the past year, Israel has begun erecting an elaborate high-tech fence designed to keep Palestinians out. But the project could take years, and Palestinians are protesting Israeli plans to route the barrier into the West Bank in many areas to protect Jewish settlements.
"The fence is important, but there will always be loopholes," said Mr. Ganor, the counterterrorism expert. "Realistically, the aim is to limit attacks as much as possible, but it's impossible to stop them completely."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Privacy Policy
|
|
