Terror organizations have expressed harsh condemnation of the killing of Hamas spiritual leader and founder Ahmad Yasin, pointing an accusing finger not only at Israel, but also at the U.S.
The military wing of the Hamas organization, ‘Azz A-Din Al-Qassam, said “the Zionists would not have carried this out without the consent of the American terrorist Administration which should bear responsibility for this crime.”
In a proclamation on the Hamas website ‘Azz A-Din Al-Qassam vowed retaliation for the assault, which was carried out by what it calls “the Nazi terrorist Zionists.” The response will come not only from all Palestinian factions but from the whole Islamic world, they said. They called for the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and said that in his decision to kill Yasin, he has condemned hundreds of Israelis to death.
Other organizations also stressed the American-Israeli link. The leader of Islamic Jihad Ra’dwan ‘Abdallah Shalah told Al-Jazeera TV the decision to kill Yasin clarifies the terrorist character of Israel, which he said has an abundance of American-made weapons. Shalah pointed out the missiles which killed Yasin were American, as stated in a transcript of the interview on the Islamic Jihad website.
The decision to kill Yasin was a declaration of war, he said, and he vowed to avenge the sheikh’s blood in the “heart of the Zionist entity.”
Shalah said Israel is acting as though there are no Arabs and no Muslims. “The whole West and the U.S. support this terror,” he said.
The High Monitoring Council for National and Islamic Forces, an organization set up at the beginning of the uprising, linking several Palestinian militant factions, said this “cowardly assassination operation,” verifies “the Israeli-American collaboration in the hostilities against our people, and it disgraces Sharon’s plan to withdraw from Gaza.”
Another organization, the Na’sir ‘Salah A-Din Legions, the military wing of the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), urged its fighters to retaliate swiftly to the assassination. In a proclamation published on the Hamas website they said “the Zionist enemy, led by the terrorist Sharon and backed by the American terrorist George Bush, while targeting the Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, are mocking you…today it is time they knew you have life in you.”
The PRC was established by senior operatives and members of Palestinian terror organizations, after the uprising broke out. The group has carried out numerous attacks on Israeli targets, mostly in post-1967 territories.
At publication time, the U.S. reaction has been ambiguous. The official State Department reaction was to acknowledge the assassination, affirm that they are “looking into the circumstances” surrounding it and are in touch with both sides, urging them to be calm and “exercise restraint.”
An American source in the Middle East believes the threat of terror is higher following the attack. “All Americans abroad should exercise caution in the wake of the attack,” he said.
While almost all sources agree the terror groups will attempt revenge attacks on Israel, they will not act outside of Israel, said Jeremy Binnie, a Middle East expert with Jane’s Information Group, a London-based resource group on international defense and security.
They do not want to be “tainted” by an association with Al-Qa’ida and weaken their credibility and chances of acceding to a leadership position in a future Palestinian state, he added. While Hamas does have elements of pan-Islamic ideals, they are not immediately concerned with the rest of the Islamic world like Al-Qa’ida, Binnie explained.
Binnie said the timing of the assassination is significant, and that Israel might have believed that “in the wake of the Madrid bombings, European condemnation would be more muted.”
Binnie affirmed that while Europe is concerned for its own security following the Madrid bombings, the EU would never support an act such as Yasin’s assassination that blatantly defied human rights law, like killing without a trial. Furthermore, he said, Europe might view it as “another attempt of Israel to wind up the situation” instead of calming things down.
In terms of the European response, it was generally condemnation, with British Foreign Minister Jack Straw saying that while Israel has the right to defend itself, it was not justified to use “unacceptable and unjust” means to fulfill that right.
On the other side of the coin, Israel justified the killing, claiming Yasin was Israel’s Osama Bin Laden. It’s hard to say whether this is a justifiable claim, said Binnie as Yasin was more a political and religious figure than a terrorist leader.
“If he really was this dangerous [as Bin Laden], I’m sure he would have been killed earlier,” he added.
As to the alleged U.S. link to the killing, Binnie said the U.S. is not responsible for the attack, and it is unclear whether Israel got approval for the assassination from the U.S., as might be expected. He referred to a “diplomatic struggle” between the two states, in which “Israel would like to [demonstrate] its independence to a certain extent.”
Furthermore, with plans underway for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Binnie continued, Israel would want to weaken Hamas, he said, so as not to unwittingly hand power over to them, in the absence of an effective Palestinian Authority.
While claims that the next major Al-Qa’ida attack might cite the assassination of Yasin, it will not be a major cause for it, Binnie suggested.