The founder of Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Thursday the arrest of a Palestinian guerrilla leader in Iraq suggested U.S. forces were now targeting leaders of a Palestinian uprising against Israel. “It (arrest of Abu Abbas) indicates that America is sinking its sharp teeth into Iraq and into Palestine,” Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said. “It is a crusader’s war against both. But it will be defeated. Our people are stronger than Israel and America,” the wheelchair-bound Yassin said as 2,000 Palestinians marched to mark Palestinian Prisoner Day. Abbas, seized by U.S. forces who toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in an invasion this month, masterminded the 1985 hijacking of a Mediterranean cruise ship in which a disabled, elderly American Jewish passenger was shot and thrown overboard. But Abbas later renounced violence and had lived mainly in Baghdad for the last 17 years. His small Palestine Liberation Front group has played almost no role in the independence uprising begun in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in September 2000. The United States hailed Abbas’s capture earlier this week as a victory in its declared war on terrorism and proof that Saddam had links to “terrorist” groups. 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.