The recent visit of Palestine Liberation Organization Chief Yasir Arafat to Moscow resulted in the establishment of a direct pipeline of Soviet weapons to Palestinian terrorists, it was learned here. The weapons are said to include the latest model Kalachnikof automatic assault rifle and mobile anti aircraft missiles and launchers known as the “Strela” or SAM-7 which can be carried with a shoulder harness. The new Kalachnikof can fire grenades up to 250 meters and the SAM-7s will increase the defense capability of terrorist bases against Israeli air attacks, sources said.
According to the sources. EI Fatah has already organised a system to transport these weapons from the Syrian port of Latakiah where they are unloaded from Russian merchant ships to bases in Syria and southern Lebanon and from Syria, via Jordan, to terrorist cells in Israel’s administered territories. Previously, the terrorists received their arms and ammunition from the USSR or the People’s Republic of China indirectly through the Arab states.
According to reliable sources, the Palestinian terrorists are making a serious effort to involve Jordan in their activities. Two terrorist gangs that penetrated Israeli territory recently, including the one that attacked Beisan, came from Jordan. They are trying to establish cells in refugee camps in Jordan to use as bases for attacks on Israel and against the Hussein regime. Jordanian security forces are effectively countering these efforts, but in some cases, Jordanian officers were known to have succumbed to bribery.
CONFIRMS LEBANESE AID TO TERRORISTS
Lebanon, however, remains the largest staging area for terrorist assaults on Israel. One of the terrorists captured in the attack on the Circassian Moslem village of Rihaniya last week, 21-year-old Mahmoud Zagloul, boasted on a television interview last night that the present Lebanese government aids and facilitates the activities of terrorist organizations in that country.
He said the Beirut authorities know where every terrorist base is located and have complete knowledge of terrorist activities and their missions. Zagloul said that he and his companions passed through a Lebanese military checkpoint on their way to Israel. He said they simply identified themselves as members of EI Fatah and the sentries wished them good luck.
Zagloul who originally came from a West Bank village in the Samaria district, dispelled the belief that he and his companions bad mistaken Rihaniya for a Jewish village. He said they knew exactly where they were and even heard Arabic spoken before they broke into the house of Subhi Moussa and fatally shot the Circassian paper mill worker. Some observers have suggested that the attack on a Moslem village was deliberate EI Fatah strategy to demonstrate that Israel does not give adequate protection to its minorities.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
