Terrorist Blast Averted

A major disaster was averted here this morning when the driver of an oil tanker truck discovered an explosive charge attached to the rear of his vehicle moments before he began to fill the tanker with fuel at the oil terminal yard at the Givat Shaul section of Jerusalem.

The driver managed to remove the charge to an open field some distance from the yard and ran back to call the police. Minutes later, just before a police sapper arrived, the charge exploded in the field without causing any damage. Police began an investigation of where the truck had been parked during the night and of the route the driver had taken to the oil terminal.

Police credited the driver with averting a major disaster. A number of tankers were lined up in the yard waiting to be refueled. Had the charge gone undetected the area would have been turned into a blazing inferno, police said.

SEVERAL ATTEMPTS OVER THE WEEKEND

This morning’s terrorist sabotage attempt was one of several over the weekend and the 20th incident in Israel in the past two weeks where the alertness of a person averted a tragedy. On Friday, a man noticed a suspicious parcel tied under a taxi parked near the Plaza Hotel in East Jerusalem. The bomb inside the package was dismantled before it exploded.

Thursday night a vegetable vendor in the Rehovot vegetable market spotted a suspicious parcel near his stand and called the police. The area was evacuated and a police sapper dismantled the bomb. Also Thursday night, an explosive charge attached to the undercarriage of a bus went off in the Talpiot section of Jerusalem. The vehicle was damaged, but there were no casualties. The bus, which operates along a route that passes through the East Jerusalem area, was parked near the driver’s home.

In another incident, a Katyusha rocket was fired at Kiryat Arba near Hebron. The rocket exploded but caused neither damage nor casualties. Security forces searching the area found a rocket launcher at a site near Kiryat Arba. A number of suspects were detained.

Meanwhile, police and army units are continuing their search for two men who were seen boarding a taxi in Nablus Friday afternoon carrying a suspicious-looking parcel. Police were called but before they arrived the taxi disappeared in the direction of Kalkilya where it was found deserted a few hours later. A search was conducted for the two men in Kalkilya and in the nearby refugee camps.

WARNS OF OTHER TERRORIST ATTEMPTS

Police, who continued today to warn the public to report any suspicious objects, said that according to intelligence reports terrorists would try to carry out sabotage attempts on a grand scale during the days leading up to the Camp David summit talks. Arye Ivtzan, commander of the southern police force, convened a meeting of senior officers to discuss ways to prevent further sabotage.

“It is very largely thanks to the alertness of the public that terrorists were prevented from succeeding in their deadly missions,” Ivtzan said. The police are concentrating their efforts on advising shop keepers, market vendors, bus drivers and civil servants how to detect suspicious objects.