Money was tight. The bickering was intense. Some were even threatening to break away from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and form a separate movement. It was early 1994. The debate about how to resolve the crisis flowed through fax machines and international telephone lines from Syria to England and to the United States. The balding, bespectacled man who would resolve the conflict and restore the terrorist group’s finances was University of South Florida computer scientist Sami Al-Arian, says a federal indictment unsealed Thursday. What Al-Arian didn’t know as he was brokering the truce was that federal agents were listening to his telephone calls and intercepting his faxes. Al-Arian’s proposal was put to a vote of the group’s leaders. It passed 8-2. The deal kept the Palestinian Islamic Jihad from falling apart, the indictment says. Al-Arian’s Islamic Jihad role did not stop there. He helped move money, defined ideology, and reached out to the Islamic Jihad’s rival Palestinian movement, Hamas, the indictment says. He allegedly was Islamic Jihad’s U.S. leader, secretary of its Shura, or international governing council, and head of an Islamic Jihad cell in Tampa. Full Story
About OODA Analyst
OODA is comprised of a unique team of international experts capable of providing advanced intelligence and analysis, strategy and planning support, risk and threat management, training, decision support, crisis response, and security services to global corporations and governments.