Saturday, October 13, 2012
Elder of Ziyon
Motorcycle swarm! From PalToday
The air force launched an air strike on Saturday night on members of a Palestinian jihadi organization that fired a rocket into southern Israel over the weekend – and which were planning terror attacks on Israel – the IDF said.
Palestinian medical sources said two men riding a motorcycle in northern Gaza were reportedly killed in the strike.
The interior ministry of Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, said one of the men killed was Hisham Al-Saedni, also known as Abu Al-Waleed Al-Maqdissi, believed to head the Jihadist Salafi group Tawhid and Jihad (One God and Holy War).
The group, rival to Hamas, has an Islamist ideology shared by al-Qaida and sources have said that Saedni joined al-Qaida in Iraq at the beginning of the US-led invasion in 2003.
In March 2011 Hamas detained Saedni for 17 months and had freed him in August.
Last year members identifying themselves with Tawhid and Jihad kidnapped and killed a pro-Palestinian Italian activist, Vittorio Arrigoni, in an apparent attempt to secure the release of Saedni.
An Israeli military spokesman could not confirm Saedni was the target of the air strike. A written military statement said the two men targeted were "terror operatives of the Shora Council of the Mujahideen, a Gaza-based Global Jihad affiliate." The same group had claimed responsibility for a rocket that was fired into Israel on Friday and landed near a house in the Israeli town of Netivot, causing damage but no casualties.
An army source said the cell was involved in past terrorist attacks on Israel, and was in the last stages of preparing another attack.
