Gunmen Fire at Abbas' Headquarters

[drdon326]

Palestinian militants fired Wednesday at Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' West Bank headquarters while he was in the compound, but he was not injured, security officials said.

Later, the 15 gunmen — who said they belong to an armed group linked to the ruling Fatah movement — went on a shooting rampage throughout the city of Ramallah, damaging several restaurants and forcing shops to close, witnesses and officials said.

snip

Abbas — who was elected president in a Jan. 9 vote after the November death of Yasser Arafat — has vowed to bring law and order to Palestinian areas, and reform his overlapping and corruption-plagued security forces.


The gunmen — members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades — said they went on their rampage after Palestinian security officials forced six of them out of the Ramallah headquarters, where they had sought refuge after Israel began hunting down fugitives shortly after violence erupted in September 2000.


Arafat had allowed more than 20 fugitives to remain in his compound, and Abbas had followed suit.A Palestinian security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the security forces asked the six militants to either hand over their weapons or leave the compound after "they were involved in kidnappings, blackmailing, harming people, shooting them."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050330/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_abbas

.................................................................

kidnappings, blackmailing, harming people, shooting them.


I find that hard to believe.

Welcome to your worst nightmare.

[pelsar]

1. surprise, surprise, surprise

but no we arent...a society cant celebrate the use of terror on civilians both within its own society and outside and then all of a sudden expect it to go away, when "wished for"

this is simply the "chickens coming home to roost"

and given that abbas and govt has not yet (or cannot) take full control of his own fractured society, these gangbangers armed with automatic weapons, family connections, a poltical ideology, backing from parts of europeans and arabs outside their society.....are going to make live miserable for the palestenians and israelis

perhaps only perhaps the damage that they are doing to their own society will become obvious to some.

[Colorado Blue]

2. Yes! This is the point I was trying to make in the thread

about the Holocaust. People can't glorify violence, it will come back every time to bite them in the rear and destroy everything they're trying to build.

I really fear this. The good will of 99% of the people in Israel and in the Arab countries could all be wrecked by the actions of a very few. And the fact that outsiders, as you say, continue to glorify and back these fools is mind-boggling. What can be gained, besides endless chaos and destruction?

***

On a grand scale, the US created Saddam and the Soviets backed and armed other regimes, and old tribal and religious strife has been magnified a thousandfold, and we've reaped a terrible harvest.

Beyond the Middle East, there is warfare all over the world, sometimes based on nothing more than old tribal grudges.

Isn't this planet is too small and modern weapons, too terrible, for the old warlike ways to continue? Mustn't we develop new philosophies for dealing with our differences? And mustn't the industrialized world find something to do with its creativity besides the creation of weapons, and something to sell besides war?

[drdon326]

3. Well, sadly....

under arafat, they allowed this "FRANKENSTEIN" called Hamas,IJ et al to grow thru support , thru state sponsored media anti-semitism (see "pigs and monkeys") and thru re-arming (see Korine-a), did they really expect this wouldnt come to haunt them??:shrug:

You know....several years ago....I remember there was a march by a couple of dozen palestinian women protesting against terrorism by hamas etc ... they didnt have much support. Never heard about them again.

[centristo]

4. people often talk about

the need for a Palestinian MLK Jr. or Ghandhi to move the peace process forward. I think their movement would be better served by a Palestinian Elliot Ness or Joe Clark. He doesn't even need to be some kind of public figure, just a guy who can get the job done.