Israel Cracks Down on Militants With Osama Links

Aug. 22, 2000 -- Israeli officials today said security forces would remain on alert after their success at cracking a network of militants linked to Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden.

Israel said Monday that over the past few weeks it had arrested 23 suspected guerrillas allegedly planning bombing attacks on Israelis. Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s security adviser Danny Yatom said he had no information about where the bin Laden cell was planning to strike.

“We know of no specific place that had been targeted but terrorist organizations will continue to try to attack us and we have to be prepared,” Yatom told Israel Radio.

The militant Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have in the past tried to sabotage Israeli-Palestinian peace deals by launching large-scale bombing attacks against Israeli targets which have killed scores of people.

Palestinian officials denied Israel’s assertions they were involved in the crackdown against the militants and that a Palestinian man called Nabil Aukal, who Israel arrested in June, was the cell’s ringleader.

“The whole story about bin Laden is a big lie,” said Palestinian security chief in Gaza, Mohammad Dahlan.

Aukal’s family in Gaza said he had no connection to Islamicmilitants. They said he had been in Pakistan recently but onlyfor religious reasons.

However, U.S. officials today confirmed the arrests. The United States believes many of the arrested individuals were planning terrorist attacks to undermine the peace process.

A U.S. congressional report issued in Washington Monday warned that bin Laden supporters were planning attacks in Israel to thwart Middle East peacemaking. It said some Hamas members may be gravitating to bin Laden, who lives in exile in Afghanistan.

Sign of Bin Laden’s Influence in Israel

U.S. officials believe this is the first major signal of bin Laden’s influence in Israel. The U.S. embassy in Israel issued a warning to all Americans of an increased possibility of a terrorist attack in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. That warning, issued Aug. 16, will remain in effect until Dec. 16. Americans are specifically warned to not use public buses.

The United States wants bin Laden to stand trial on charges of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 that killed 220 people.

Security analyst Yoram Schweitzer from the International Policy Institute for Counter-intelligence said many of bin Laden’s Palestinian recruits had been taught to use explosives in training camps in Afghanistan.

“They were planning several things. They were planning mass casualties attacks, part of it was to fire a missile at a settlement, kidnap soldiers and set off large explosive charges with a remote control in a very highly populated area,” he said.

‘A Dangerous Combination’

Israel’s Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, who last week warned that Iran was encouraging Palestinian militants to attack Israel, said the bin Laden cell had a dangerous combination of “enormous financial and organizational abilities and religious fervor that is very extreme.”

Schweitzer said bin Laden would continue his attempts to recruit Palestinian operatives from the West Bank and Israeli Arabs for training in Afghanistan.

Three of the militants arrested were Israeli Arabs, Israeli officials said.

Jordan and Lebanon have both uncovered militant cells linked to bin Laden and tried dozens of members accused of planning attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets in Jordan.

Schweitzer said bin Laden’s group was also targeting Israelis and Jews in other parts of the world. “To kill a French Jew is like killing an Israeli. There is no difference [for him], so when he attacks a Jewish target it’s like attacking Israel,” he said.

ABCNEWS’ Barbara Starr and Reuters contributed to this report.