Reveal Capture of Two Terrorist Gangs on Eve of Sadat’s Visit to Israel

Security sources revealed today the apprehension of two terrorist gave shortly before Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem last November. Three other terrorist cells were also uncovered on the West Bank recently, the sources said.

They said that two days prior to Sadat’s arrival, a five-member gang was detected crossing the Jordan River on a sabotage mission inside Israel. All were captured, after pursuit, near Kibbutz Na’aran in the Jordan Valley. They were identified as members of the Iraqi-sponsored Arab Liberation Front.

Four days earlier an explosion rocked a house in the Old City of Jerusalem resulting in the death of one terrorist and the capture of three others, two of them young woman school teachers. The terrorists had been preparing a large suitcase bomb which was to have been placed an a Jerusalem-Tel Aviv passenger train timed to go off at noon the next Sunday.

The gang was reportedly responsible for several terrorist acts last year, including a bomb explosion in the Old City on May 28 which injured a German tourist and two local residents and another bomb, concealed in a watermelon, that exploded near Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem on Aug. 27 but caused no casualties or damage.

An army spokesman reported that on El Fatah terrorist cell believed responsible for several Molotov cocktail attacks an Israeli military vehicles, was uncovered recently at a refugee camp near Jenin on the West Bank. Another gang, associated with the Syrian-sponsored Al Saiqa, was amnestied in the same area in possession of arms and explosives. Other arrests in the Jenin area included 31 members of a gang linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. They were apprehended at El-Yamun village while reportedly planning a series of attacks.