Schmoozing With Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal Their Global Plans-To a Jew!

by Aaron Klein

  The deputy commander of the Brigades in Nablus, Nasser Abu Aziz, is also U.S.-trained. He received training in Italy, as well. He's personally killed at least four Israelis in shooting attacks, and together with Senakreh, aided in planning several suicide bombings.

  Zacharias Zubeidi, well-known leader of the Brigades in Jenin-the city where most Palestinian suicide bombers originate-was trained by our government in Jericho.

  The theme goes on.

  Israel regularly arrests U.S.-trained Fatah members wielding American weapons who are wanted for terror attacks and who used their American training to carry out their operations. In the months leading up to this book's publication, dozens of U.S.- trained terrorists were arrested in Ramallah alone.

  Once, a senior terrorist working for Fatah was caught by me transporting weapons just delivered by the U.S. On February 1, 2007, Hamas ambushed a Fatah Force 17 convoy the terror group claimed was transporting American weapons delivered the night before to a Fatah compound in the Gaza Strip. A battle raged between Hamas gunmen and Force 17 guards accompanying the convoy. Four Force 17 officers were killed. The Islamic Jihad terror group told me among those killed serving with Force 17 was Nidal Tlaa, the chief commander of Islamic Jihad's so-called military wing. He was wearing his Force 17 uniform when he was shot. So the overall leader of Islamic Jihad's terror wing in Gaza also doubled as a U.S.-funded Fatah officer whose rank was so high he was trusted with transporting American weapons shipments.

  And yet America keeps sending Fatah weapons and keeps training its militias. Better to deal with the bad guy you know, perhaps the thinking goes. The three thousand assault rifles reported in May 2006 were just the tip of the iceberg. There are weapons shipments to Fatah all the time that go unreported. I am in touch with officials on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides who coordinate the arrival and delivery of the American weapons. I am alerted to a lot of the U.S. weapons shipments to Fatah, like a shipment in January 2007 of over seven thousand assault rifles and more than one million rounds of ammunition purportedly to bolster Fatah against rival Hamas factions while the two were engaged in firefights. A shipment of three thousand assault rifles arrived in July 2007.

  I am not sure Congress knows the extent of American arms regularly flooded to Fatah. We're talking over $200 million worth of weapons in 2006 alone in addition to all the publicly declared financial support of the Palestinians, which has amounted to nearly $1.8 billion in direct aid to the PA and nongovernmental organizations operating in the Palestinian territories since 1994 and more than $1.1 billion to the United Nations organizations that work with the Palestinians.

  After the January shipment of seven thousand American assault rifles arrived, I asked Abu Yousuf what his group would do with the arms.

  "The first place of these U.S. weapons will be to defend the Palestinian national project, which is reflected by the foundation of the Palestinian Authority. If Hamas or any other group under the influence of Iran and Syria wants to make a coup d'etat against our institution, these weapons are there to defend the PA," Abu Yousuf told me days after a new cache arrived.

  But the Fatah militant said the new American weapons shipments may also be used to target Israelis.

  "If we find ourselves manipulated by Israel, we cannot guarantee members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Force 17 will not use these weapons against Israel. Our goal is to change the occupation," said Abu Yousuf.

  "It's unnatural to think these American weapons won't be used against the Israelis," he said.

  Abu Yousuf said the American weapons shipments may be shared with other Palestinian terror groups. He said that during large confrontations with Israel, such as the Jewish state's 2002 anti-terror raid in Jenin, Fatah distributed weapons to Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

  "We don't look where this piece or that piece of weapon came from when fighting the Israelis," Abu Yousuf said.

  There was a brief period I thought Congress understood the U.S. was supporting terrorism and almost blocked aid to Fatah militias. During the fiasco Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice conceded she cannot guarantee American money and weapons sent to Fatah won't "get into the wrong hands."

  The Bush administration in January pledged $86.4 million to strengthen the Fatah forces, including Force 17. The funds would be used to implement a security plan devised by Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, the American security coordinator in the region. Dayton's plan called for some $14.5 million for "basic and advanced training" of Fatah fighters, $23 million for equipment, $2.9 million to upgrade Force 17 facilities and $3 million to provide "capacity building and technical assistance" to the office of Dahlan, Fatah's strongman in Gaza.

  But after a series of articles, including several of mine, outlining how Fatah consists of terrorists, Congress blocked the aid pending a clarification from Rice.

  During a Congressional hearing in March 2007, Rice conceded she can't account for where the aid will go. She said she would request less money.

  "I will request less money, precisely because some of the money that I would have requested I did not think I could fully account for. I hope that is a sign for you that we take very seriously our responsibilities. I have no interest in having to come here one day and say, 'you know this funding did not end up in the right place.' I will do my very best," she told Congress.

  Lawmakers caught the State Department red-handed. The U.S. was about to send money Rice admitted may get into the wrong hands. But then Rice simply asked for $59 million instead of $86.5 million to fund the same terror-saturated Fatah militias. And Congress bought it. They unfroze the aid, but put on one new qualification stipulating the money must not be used to purchase weapons. The State Department is free to send more weapons to Fatah, which they will, just not from this particular aid package, which instead will only train terrorists but not arm them and anyway is likely only a fraction of the funding to Fatah that Congress knows about.

  Congress, by the way, didn't express much worry Fatah fighters are also terrorists. Instead, they were mostly worried Hamas might get their hands on the weapons. Congress naively thinks Fatah is moderate. In the end they allowed the money after assurances the funds won't train Hamas.

  Well, I can assure Congress the $59 million in American funds they approved in 2007 will indeed train Hamas since Hamas is very well placed within U.S.-funded Fatah forces, according to Israeli security officials, Fatah security officials, and the Hamas terrorists themselves.

  Israeli security officials say Hamas has infiltrated all major Fatah security forces, including Force 17.

  A top Palestinian intelligence official speaking to me in Ramallah admitted, "We are leading a large number of investigations and some of the results prove that such an infiltration by Hamas (of Fatah's security and intelligence forces) exists."

  The official oversees intelligence for Fatah's police forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

  "I can say that in some cases we diagnosed a deep infiltration to high posts in some Fatah security services," said the Palestinian intelligence officer. "In some cases we believe there are officers that are exposed to very sensitive information."

  He said that since the Bush administration announced it was providing Abbas's forces with additional funds, Fatah intelligence officials at the direction of American security coordinators have been attempting to expel Hamas infiltrators. He said in one month alone "dozens" of members of Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees, and Islamic jihad were found operating in the Fatah forces.

  The Committees regularly carries out terror attacks, including rocket launchings, shootings and kidnappings. It is accused of a 2003 bombing of a U.S. convoy in Gaza in which three American contractors were killed.

  Muhammad Abdel-El, spokesman for the Committees, told me Fatah's attempts to discover militants from his group "have not even scratched the surface of our infiltration."

  "We are very well-placed within Fatah's units and their little investigations made no difference," he said.


  He said the Committees will obtain the U.S. aid and any American arms given to Fatah: "In all the security services, including in Force 17, there are activists affiliated with all the Palestinian groups, including ours, and Hamas," he said. "We vow that this American money will be used against the occupation and the Zionist enemy."

  Similarly, Abu Oubaida, a spokesman for Hamas, told me his terror group will obtain any U.S. aid or weapons transferred to Fatah militias.

  "I am sure that like in the past, this $59 million from America will find its way to the Hamas resistance via the honorable persons in the Fatah security organizations, including in Force 17. I can confirm 100 percent that this money will find its way to Hamas," said Abu Oubaida.

  Even if Fatah wasn't infiltrated by Hamas, which they are, logic dictates if you arm one terror group against another, it will create an arms race with the competing group. Indeed that is exactly what happened with Hamas, which fairly easily obtained enormous quantities of weaponry from its Iranian backers.

  "The more the Americans give Abu Mazen [Abbas] weapons, the more we will have in the future weapons to use against the Israelis, because it incites the different organizations to intensify their own supply of weapons," Hamas's Abu Abdullah told me.

  Rendering Fatah's U.S.-backed investigation to oust Hamas from its midst completely farcical, in April 2007, Hamas and Fatah approved a plan to incorporate Hamas militias and terror cells into a unified security force under the authority of Abbas. According to the plan, Hamas's so-called military wing, responsible for scores of anti-Israel terror attacks, would have been allowed to continue operating under the aegis of the PA's Interior Ministry. The plan calls for all armed organizations, including the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, to maintain a single operations center under the command of Abbas.

  The terror unity agreement was forged just days after Congress approved the $59 million in aid to Fatah! Of course, it never came about; Hamas and Fatah basically waged war against each other.

  But I've witnessed things even more ridiculous. In one of the most absurd moments I experienced as a reporter in Israel, days after the January 2007 shipment of seven thousand American assault rifles purportedly to arm Abbas's Fatah militias against Hamas, Abbas gave a public speech in Ramallah in front of hundreds of Palestinians and the international news media in which he urged Palestinians to use their assault rifles against Israel instead of Hamas.

  "Shooting at your brother is forbidden. Raising rifles against the occupation is our legitimate right, but raising guns against each other is forbidden. We should put our internal fighting aside and raise our rifles only against the Israeli occupation," said Abbas during the speech, which I attended and which was part of a ceremony commemorating the forty-second anniversary of the founding of his Fatah party.

  Abbas then used Quranic verses to claim Jews are corrupting the world.

  "The sons of Israel are mentioned as those who are corrupting humanity on earth," Abbas said during a portion of his speech in which he criticized recent Israeli anti-terror raids in the northern West Bank.

  Incredibly, Abbas's anti-Semitic remarks and his call to arms against the Jewish state were not quoted in scores of English language articles reporting on the speech or by most major Israeli dailies, which featured pieces on their websites about the Fatah commemoration ceremonies.

  Most of the articles, written by reporters in attendance, claimed Abbas gave a talk about making peace with Israel. Some of the articles deliberated cut out Abbas's anti-Israel remarks. For example, a widely circulated Associated Press article, titled "Abbas calls for respect at Fatah rally," stated Abbas used his speech to call for rival factions to respect each other.

  The AP quotes Abbas stating, "Shooting at your brother is forbidden," but the article stops short of quoting the rest of Abbas's sentence in which he recommends Palestinians use their weapons against Israel. The AP article was featured on such top websites as WashingtonPost.com and CBSNews.com. Articles by other news agencies and local Israeli papers also failed to quote Abbas's anti-Israel and anti-Semitic remarks.

  Just as during the days of Arafat, the cover up of Abbas and his Fatah terror organization is so extensive Abbas can give a speech in front of the international media about raising rifles against Israel and no one even reports about it.

  Hamas Hijacks CIA Documents

  "The Gaza Strip has fallen. It's now Hamas land. We have lost," Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat yelled into his cell phone, speaking to me from Ramallah in June 2007.

  Two days earlier, the Hamas terror group had launched a stunning coup in Gaza, taking complete control of the territory and overrunning all U.S.-backed Fatah security compounds and positions there, including Fatah's major Ansar complex-where massive quantities of American-provided weapons were delivered and stored-and Abbas's presidential guard complex.

  Hamas was elected to power in 2006 and for the first few months of the terror group's rule, it shared a government with Abbas's Fatah party. But the Hamas leadership knew they were much stronger than Fatah in Gaza, so they acted as all violent gangs do to assume leadership-they staged a bloody uprising and seized control.

  In a matter of a few days in June 2007, Hamas completely took over the Gaza Strip. In a spectacular display broadcast by the international media, Hamas overran Fatah security buildings and compounds in which U.S. security officials previously maintained a regular presence, coordinating security and weapons delivery and providing training to Abbas's militias.

  When Hamas hijacked the Fatah buildings, they also obtained enormous quantities of U.S. weapons. Hamas's Al Aqsa Television immediately broadcast footage of Hamas gunmen brandishing what it said were American assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers and ammunition the U.S. reportedly provided to Fatah.

  Members of Hamas's so-called military wing provided me with a preliminary list of U.S. weaponry and equipment they claimed they obtained, including dozens of mounted machine guns; approximately 7,400 American M-16 assault rifles; about 800,000 rounds of bullets; eighteen armored personnel carriers; seven armored military jeeps; "tens" of armored civilian cars, including pickup trucks and magnums; eight massive trucks equipped with water cannons for dispersing protests; and fourteen military-sized bulldozers.

  Hamas members said the list didn't include what they said were large quantities of U.S.-provided rocket propelled grenades, grenade launchers, explosives, and military equipment, such as boots and tents.

  Abu Abdullah, a senior member of Hamas's "military wing," said his group estimates it obtained at least $400 million worth of American weapons and equipment. While I couldn't verify that number, the average cost of an M-16 in Gaza during the time Hamas took over was $16,911, and the average cost of a bullet was $12.07, meaning the cost in Gaza of U.S. assault rifles and bullets Hamas claims to have obtained amount to over $137 million.

  Not only did Hamas hijack our weaponry, it also claims to have obtained important CIA files, including documents that supposedly outline American intelligence networks in the Middle East. The CIA files were apparently also obtained by the Popular Resistance Committees, which was accused of bombing a U.S. convoy in 2003. The Committees fought alongside Hamas during the Gaza coup.

  Hamas and Popular Resistance Committees leaders told me they seized the purported CIA files upon taking over Gaza City's Fatah compounds, particularly the Preventative Security Services building and a U.S.-backed intelligence compound. They said prior to Hamas's advances, Fatah officials attempted to destroy the CIA documents but only succeeded in eliminating some.

  "The CIA files we seized, which include documents, CDs, taped conversations, and videos, are more important than all the American weapons we obtained in the last days as we took over the traitor Fatah's positions," said Committees spokesman Abdel-El.

  Hamas's Abu Abdullah said, "The files are crucial for our fight against the Zionists and anyone who collaborates with them, including the Americans."

  Ab
dullah said the hijacked CIA documents contained "information about the collaboration between Fatah and the Israeli and American security organizations; CIA methods on how to prevent attacks, chase and follow after cells of Hamas and the Committees; plans about Fatah assassinations of members of Hamas and other organizations; and American studies on the security situation in Gaza."

  Abdullah claimed the documents also detailed CIA networks in other Arab countries and "how to help beat Islamic allies of Hamas in other Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan."

  "We will use these documents and make portions public to prove the collaboration between America and traitor Arab countries," Abdullah said.

  Abdel-El boasted he found his name mentioned four times in the CIA documents on his group.

  "I am amazed by the material and the context of the documents," he said.

  The brilliant U.S. plan to arm Fatah against Hamas couldn't have blown up in our faces any more than it did with Hamas's takeover of Gaza. Did we learn from our mistakes and stop funding, arming, training, and coordinating intelligence with terror thugs? Of course not. The first thing the U.S. and international community did after Hamas's Gaza seizure was pledge more aid and send more weapons to Abbas in the West Bank to ensure against a Hamas takeover there.

  Abu Abdullah told me, "Like the American weapons in Gaza we told you will come to Hamas, also the weapons and aid the Americans are giving to Abu Mazen [Abbas] as part of their conspiracy against us in the West Bank will find its way to the Palestinian resistance and Hamas."

  Death of American Teenager "Gift from Allah"

  It was a hot day in April 2006. Jews worldwide were celebrating the fifth day of the Passover holiday, one of the holiest festivals on the Jewish calendar. I was studying the laws of Passover with a rabbi in Tel Aviv when my pager beeped with the one message I most dread-"Alert, suicide bombing." The Israeli government sends regular text message alerts to accredited reporters in Israel. I was informed the bombing took place just a few blocks from where I was at the time, so I rushed to the scene.