Israel’s General Security Service, more widely known as the Shin Bet, recently scored a major victory in the ongoing struggle against the terrorist organizations in the administered territories.
The domestic intelligence service apprehended members of the Moslem fundamentalist Az-a-Din Al-Kassem group, which is allegedly responsible for the murder of eight Israelis and at least 20 Palestinians suspected of having collaborated with the authorities.
The arrest of the terrorists was regarded here as a major blow to one of the most dangerous groups which identify with Hamas, the Moslem fundamentalist terrorist organization.
According to Palestinian sources, members of the group were actually turned over to authorities by Palestinians identified with the mainstream Al Fatah organization, which could no longer tolerate the terror carried out by the fundamentalist group, mostly in the Gaza region.
The 15 members of the group have been operating in the Gaza Strip for the past two years. In the past year, security forces have killed several members of the group, and others were apprehended, some during an attempt to flee to Egypt.
The last three active members of the group were caught last week in an apartment in the West Bank town of El Bireh, north of Jerusalem, following intelligence reports.
A senior officer disclosed Sunday that the security forces had been searching throughout a wide area when a reserve soldier spotted suspicious activity in an apartment which turned out to be the hideout of the wanted terrorists.
MURDERS IN JAFFA AND GAZA
Security sources believed the three men apprehended — Mahmoud Ali Mahmoud Harej, Mahmoud Jamahin Abu-Ayyash and Mahmoud Abdul Karim Tayeb, all of Gaza — had moved to the West Bank in an attempt to leave the country, as they felt they were close to being caught.
The security sources said that in the apartment they found Karl Gustav submachine guns, as well as ammunition and hand grenades.
They also found forged Israeli identity cards, as well as a folding rubber boat.
Probably the most incriminating items in the cache were videocassettes on which were recorded the murder of two Israelis, as well as the brutal interrogation of Palestinians suspected of collaboration with the authorities.
The cassettes were apparently used as a means of recruiting Palestinian youngsters.
The Al-Kassem gang was allegedly responsible for the murder of three Israelis in an aluminum plant in Jaffa in December 1990, and five other stabbing attacks of Israelis in the Gaza Strip. Their latest attack took place on June 25, when they stabbed to death Moshe Bino, 49, of Ashkelon and Amikam Salzman, 59, of Ness Ziona, who owned a packing plant in the Gaza Strip.
The Al-Kassem group allegedly received spiritual guidance from Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the religious leader of the Moslem fundamentalist group Hamas. Yassin is serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison for his involvement in the murder of Israel Defense Force soldiers Ilan Sa’adon and Avi Sasportas several years ago.
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