THE SNAKE-S HEAD IS SMASHED FOR NOW - 27-Nov-98

THE SNAKE'S HEAD IS SMASHED. FOR NOW.

(Article by Yoav Limor, "Ma'ariv", Nov 27, 1998, p. B14)

Rafael Eitan was not kidnapped, and Amram Mitzna and Ehud Olmert are still with us, thank goodness. This is so thanks to the impressive successes notched up by the GSS in the war against Hamas. The liquidation of the brothers Imad and Adel Awadallah was one of the central successes in this war, but certainly not the only one. For the moment, and this is the good news, the Hamas military infrastructure in Judea and Samaria is broken. But those activists who remain in the field, and this is the bad news, are full of the desire to succeed and prove themselves.

Five car bomb attacks, one following the other, in the big cities; the kidnapping of soldiers with the intention of exchanging them with jailed Hamas members; The kidnapping of Minister Rafael Eitan and Mayors Ehud Olmert and Amram Mitzna; the carrying out of attacks by means of booby-trapped mobile phones and video cassettes; the assassination of senior IDF officers; attacks on settlers and settlements.

Six grandiose plans for the carrying out of heinous acts of terrorism, which were at various stages of development by Hamas. This string of terrorist acts, each one more severe than the last, was prevented by the successes of the GSS in Judea and Samaria over the last months. In a series of operations -- most important of which was the liquidation of Adel Awadallah -- the GSS has broken the Hamas military infrastructure in the West Bank. The organization was critically wounded, and the six large-scale acts of terrorism mentioned above were prevented.

Adel Awadallah was responsible for these plans. He was killed on September 10th of this year, together with his brother, at a house in Khirbet a-Taibeh, outside Hebron. The precise details of the killing have, for the most part, remained unknown, but it can now be revealed that in the safe house that they used, a detailed archive was found, which led the GSS to a string of arrests and discoveries, among them of Palestinians whose involvement in terrorism had been unknown up until that point, and allowed investigators to learn many details about the structure and method of operations of Hamas, and also about Awadallah himself.

"The man," said a senior figure in the security services this week, "was the central pivot of Hamas in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. From the point of view of importance to the organization, he was two ranks above Yihye Ayyash or Muhi a-din a-Sharif, and it may certainly be said that he was the most prominent Hamas commander in the West Bank of any period."

Awadallah, it appears to the GSS, was connected to everything, and from his place of hiding controlled Hamas activities in the West Bank. It was he who appointed military commanders, whose task was to recruit and train terrorist cells in the various parts of Judea and Samaria. It was he who supplied them with equipment for the carrying out of terror attacks, Awadallah -- who was said to exert "a magical influence" over people, was in contact with arms dealers in the territories, and they acquired rifles and grenades for him, as well as other explosive materials; he operated the "death laboratories" of the organization, in which explosive devices were assembled. In addition, he was in constant contact with the leaders of the organization in Jordan and in Israeli jails, and controlled the budgetary structure for the carrying out of attacks. It is clear to the GSS that at the time of his death Awadallah controlled thousands of dinars in various bank accounts throughout the territories, which arrived from abroad via couriers, or in the form of alleged contributions to charity.

The Life of a Hunted Animal

Awadallah was a Hamas activist from the beginning of the intifada Slowly, he built a name and a reputation for himself in the organization, until in 1995, shortly after he was freed from administrative detention, he became a central figure in Hamas. Immediately after this he was declared a wanted man by Israel. After this he lived in hiding.

Following his death, many details of how he had avoided capture were revealed, he had used various identities and an entire logistical structure had existed for the purpose of maintaining his concealment. Flats had been rented on his behalf, in areas where he intended to hide out, almost always areas under Palestinian Authority control. On a number of occasions, when he suspected his landlord, he cancelled the rental and changed his location at short notice.

Awadallah lived as a hunted animal. He changed his location and identity frequently and was in regular contact with few people. Despite the size of the structure he controlled, few were in personal contact with him. Most knew him only by one of the many code names he used. For the purpose of contact with activists in the field, he controlled a network of couriers, who also served to maintain his links with the political leadership of Hamas and with senior figures in the organization imprisoned in Israel. It is worth noting that inmates of the Ashkelon jail operated an "operations branch" on his behalf, which prepared the carrying out of attacks, and sought to derive lessons to be learned from failures and successes, and was sometimes even involved in recruitment. Contact with them was maintained by written notes, passed to them during visits.

The GSS has long expressed concern at the exploitation of visits and the danger to security therein, (discussions on this matter are currently being held with the Prison Service), and they have quoted examples of the ease with which written messages have been passed, by kisses on the mouth, or in babies' diapers. The only contact between Hamas in the West Bank and the organization in Gaza, headed by Mohammed Deif, also take place via Israeli jails in which activists from both areas are held.

The Mission: Kidnap a Mayor

Awadallah also recruited his own operatives from among those freed from Israeli captivity. He preferred those who had served at least one sentence, and especially the "men" among them -- those who had not broken during interrogation. From these he also brought his brother, who helped him on logistical matters.

Imad Awadallah was arrested by the Palestinian Authority on suspicion of having committed the murder of Sharif, and escaped from jail in Jericho in August of this year, to join his brother in Hebron. Hamas denied the murder accusation, and it is now known to the GSS that in the house where the brothers were liquidated, the organization had intended to film its version of events (against a background of a flag of the organization hung on the wall) and to distribute it widely. Today, the GSS can say with certainty that the accusations were false. At the hidden storeroom in Ramallah where he was killed in a mysterious explosion, Sharif had prepared many explosive devices, among them car bombs which were intended to be detonated in the center of Jerusalem. After he had already prepared the car bomb and sent it to its destination, he decided to delay the attack until the eve of last Passover. He chose Bar-Ilan street as a target, which would have been filled with ultra-orthodox shoppers on the eve of the holiday. After the car had been returned to him, before it set out on its second journey, Sharif asked to make improvements to it. The car exploded and the "second engineer" was killed. Members of the cell which operated eastern Jerusalem residents have been arrested recently by the GSS, and have, in the course of interrogation, admitted that they carried out the murder of yeshiva student David Katorze in February. They also admitted planning shooting attacks and the kidnapping of soldiers.

Another cell controlled by Sharif -- whose members were also eastern Jerusalem residents -- carried out the attacks in Allenby Street in Tel Aviv and French Hill in Jerusalem, in which 17 people were wounded. This group tried to take mines from an old minefield near Bethlehem, with the intention of using them to assemble explosive devices. Sharif supplied them with booby- trapped video cassettes, which were to be placed at various places throughout the country. Following the statements by the cell members, a crate of Sharif's tools was discovered, which he had used to assemble explosive devices. Today it is an "archival item" in the GSS offices. These two cells were connected to Mahmoud Abu-Tir, a Hamas activist released at the beginning of this year, after six years in jail. Before being re-arrested, he managed to acquire weaponry for Awadallah. During his interrogation, he revealed that he had received orders to carry out the kidnappings of Israeli public figures, in order to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners. Among the possible targets for kidnapping, on whom intelligence had already begun to be gathered: Agriculture Minister Rafael Eitan, Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert and Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna.

Kidnappings, mainly of soldiers, was the main objective of other cells which operated in the West Bank and were caught. Some had already carried out preliminary patrols in the field, and had even acquired chloroform to tranquilize kidnapped soldiers. Senior officers were also a target, and when the information was received by the GSS, they were warned to be careful in their movements. Even today, the GSS is warning that the kidnapping of soldiers remains the number one objective of the Hamas. More important even than the carrying out of terrorist attacks. This is the order of the leadership in jail, which hopes that the negotiations will lead to their freedom.

In addition to all these revelations, the killing of Awadallah and the arrest of the cells which followed, made possible the acquiring of information on Hamas' operational planning. The intentions, it must be said, are stupefying. If only a small part of them had been carried out, the country would have been in tumult.

In general, the GSS knows that Hamas intended to carry out bloodier terrorist attacks than it has committed in the past, with a much larger casualty rate, replacing suicide bombers with car bombs containing hundreds of kilos of explosive material. One of Awadallah's plans was to set off five car bombs in the larger cities. In between each explosion an ultimatum was to have been presented to Israel. If it was not fulfilled -- the next explosion was to have been detonated. Among the cities selected were Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Be'er Sheva, as well as Eilat, Netanya and Hadera.

Another plan involved an attack on the settlement of Ariel, as well as a long list of planned attacks on cars, civil and military, on the highways of Judea and Samaria. The Hamas also intended to use booby-trapped mobile phones.

A Ton of Explosives in One Laboratory

Awadallah had intended to execute his plans with the assistance of bomb laboratories throughout the West Bank. Some were discovered even before his death.

The following laboratories were discovered within the past year -- one in Beit Sahur, two in Nablus (just one of which contained 1,000 kilograms of explosives), two in Al-Bireh, one in Aroura, one in Beit Hanina, one in Hebron and one in Kafr Tal. Due to the lack of ordinary explosives in the West Bank, the above workshops specialized in the preparation of chemical-based explosives. As such, Hamas often used a form of acetone, known as "um al-abd," of which Awadallah procured commercial quantities through his contacts.

The purchases were coordinated by Hashem Sharbati, Awadallah's special advisor on explosives, who bought most of the materials from Israeli factories -- under the guise of civil applications. He arranged for Israeli trucks to bring the merchandise directly to Hebron.

Sharbati was arrested by the Palestinians, as a result of information supplied by the GSS. Raw materials, and about 200 kilograms of explosives he had already managed to prepare, were found in his shop and warehouse, and then destroyed. Incidentally, experiments in manufacturing explosive charges from mercury fulminate were conducted at the Aroura laboratory; Adel Rizk Arouri, a chemistry student under arrest in Israel, and the person responsible for the tests, is considered a genius -- and could have reached greater stature than either Ayyash or Sharif.

Alongside the laboratories, the GSS exposed numerous gangs across Judea and Samaria -- from Jenin in the north to the southern Mt. Hebron region. Within the framework of these discoveries, dozens of gang members, and hundreds of activists who assisted them, were apprehended.

Information files on those who were not arrested were transferred to the Palestinian Authority, which has also arrested a series of people -- headed by Sheikh Mahmad Jamal Natshe, a 40 year-old Hebron merchant who was Awadallah's closest confidant, and who shared Awadallah's leadership of the Hamas military apparatus in the territories. Natshe was also Awadallah's link to Hamas headquarters in Jordan, headed by Abu Marzour and with the "dawa" -- the Hamas social-political leadership under Sheikh Yassin. Awadallah, incidentally, did not inform the latter group of his plans, despite receiving orders from them. For the most part, he informed them only after the fact, deciding what information they should and should not receive.

Those Who Remain

In the wake of the just-completed wave of arrests, during which the security services seized large quantities of various weapons, only three Hamas fugitives remain in Judea and Samaria -- Iyad Battat, who is suspected of stabbing a soldier in Tene-Omarim last year; Ayoub Kawasmeh, a member of the gang which murdered Rabbi Shlomo Ra'anan in Hebron and which perpetrated the grenade attacks in Gross Square and at the Central Bus Station in Be'er Sheva, and Hani Abu Saba'a, a member of a gang that procured large quantities of explosives. All three are apparently hiding in the Palestinian side of Hebron. Another individual -- who basically heads the list, although he is not explicitly mentioned -- is Mahmoud Abu Hunoud, a veteran Hamas member from Nablus and one of the 400 terrorists deported to Lebanon, who operated an explosives laboratory in Nablus, and recruited and dispatched the five suicide attackers to Mahaneh Yehuda and the Jerusalem pedestrian mall last summer.

Abu Hunoud is likely to be one of Awadallah's possible successors, along with other candidates remaining in the field, with or without the knowledge of the GSS. The security establishment is cautioning that, despite the severe blow to the already impaired Hamas infrastructure, the organization's activists are still highly motivated. In short order, they say, a new leadership and terrorist infrastructure can be created.

And in the post-Wye situation, wherein the Palestinians will multiply the areas under their control sixfold, the security establishment is warning that, without Arafat's full cooperation in frustrating Hamas activity, the GSS will not be able to do anything on its own in the future.