| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Dhimmi Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|
When is news not really news? When the whole world knows it. Yet Syria continues in denial. From AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
ASHKELON, Israel - A 20-year-old Palestinian recruited from a mosque in Gaza by Hamas militants told The Associated Press in a jailhouse interview Tuesday that he received weeks of military training in a Hamas camp in Syria this year.The allegations by Osama Mattar, now in Israeli custody, mark the first time a Palestinian has spoken publicly about being trained in Syria, and contradict repeated Syrian denials.
The training base outside Damascus was far from secret and was once even inspected by Syrian intelligence agents, Mattar said.
"They know very well about the presence of Hamas," he said. "What they may not have known about was the presence of a guy from Gaza coming to train at the training camp in Syria."
Israel has long accused Syria of allowing Palestinian militants to train there and offered up Mattar - arrested March 2 as he tried to cross back into Gaza - as proof....
Syria has repeatedly denied accusations it allows militants to train on its territory. The Syrian government says it once allowed militants to run media offices from Damascus, but those were closed after a visit by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell in May 2003.
On Oct. 5, 2003, Israel bombed what it said was an Islamic Jihad training camp in Syria after the group carried out a suicide bombing at a Haifa cafe that killed 19 Israelis. Syria said at the time the base had been long abandoned.
With relations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership warming in recent months, Israel has stepped up its accusations against Syria. Israel blamed a Feb. 25 suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed five people on Islamic Jihad militants following orders from their leaders in Damascus and said it held Syria responsible.
Israeli officials say Syria continues to be a hub for Palestinian
militants....
Posted by Robert at March 30, 2005 1:04 PM
Print this entry
| Email this entry
| Digg this
| del.icio.us
Do terrorists still have offices in Syria?
Posted by: StarsandStripes1![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 30, 2005 2:10 PM
Offices are the least of worries about hizbullah. Their money, their membership, their radicalism, their influence, their weaponry, their skills, their material holdings, their "politics", their bloodthirstyness, their complete and utter disregard for human life not to mention peace .. those are the things one worries about with terrorists like hizbullah.
Posted by: bj at March 30, 2005 5:14 PM
The interesting item in this despatch is that the Israel's were actually able to get information out of a Jihadi.
I was watching an interview with a retired Mossad Colonel on the Discovery Channel, who explained that he was always successful in interrogating these people. For one reason he spoke Arabic and in different dialects, and was intimately familiar with the town or region in which they lived, he didn't resort to the counter productive and senseless tactics used at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo. He understands the way their mind works, and employs psychic ju jitsu.
American's resort to humilation, applied force, lack patience and have to rely on Arabic speakers (who are probably sympathetic to the prisoners).
In fact he said, "We have to live with these people, and if we used such tactics of humiliation, we would only live to regret it, as we would eventually turn loose firebrands more commmitted than ever" Humiliation is something that Arab sense of manhood can't tolerate, especially from an infidel and once humiliated they are more driven than ever to redeem themselves, even at the cost of their own lives and that of their families.
I have a suspicion that a lot of those guys masked by kufa's standing in front of black banners behind the victim they are getting ready to behead, that we see on video's, were once guests at Abu Ghraib, or more likely the guy that drives the bomb rigged truck into a green zone checkpoint.
By blowing up himself and the Amriki, he is redeeming his humilation, as well as seeking martyrdom and the wanton sex of 72 virgins.
Posted by: Giaour at March 30, 2005 10:03 PM
In Canada we have a case dealing with a Syrian
that denies any connection to terrorism and
yet failed to denounce his citizenship in Syria
and travels the Middle east to known Islamist
friendly Nations while being a "Refugee" in Canada fleeing here from threat of death and
torture.
Posted by: ala-sux
at March 30, 2005 10:50 PM
(Note: The Comments section is provided in the interests of free speech only. It is mostly unmoderated, but comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying stand a chance of being deleted. The fact that any comment remains on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch, or by Robert Spencer or any other Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch writer, of any view expressed, fact alleged, or link provided in that comment.)