Morning rush hour shattered by suicide bomber
A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up outside a train station in central Israel early today, killing himself and a security guard and injuring 10 bystanders.
The explosion during the morning rush hour sprayed blood and body parts across the street as commuters in Kfar Saba waited to travel to work. A witness said the security guard had stopped the bomber at the entrance to the station.
“I saw him (the bomber) put his hand in his pocket,” said the witness, who only gave his first name, Rotem. “As I turned toward the guards there was an explosion.”
The guard was killed on the spot and a female soldier standing nearby was injured by flying nails.
Ten travellers were wounded, including one seriously, ambulance crews said.
The 7:15am explosion tore light fixtures and wires from the overhang above the entrance. Blood and glass were scattered across the pavement and front steps.
A man identifying himself as a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack.
He said the bomber was an 18-year-old, Ahmed Khatib, from the Balata refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus.
But the official spokesman for the Al Aqsa militia, known by his nom de guerre Abu Mujahed, said his group had nothing to do with the bombing.
He said the attack had apparently been carried out by an Al Aqsa splinter group. The militia consists of dozens of bands of gunmen who often act independently of each other.
Khatib, who lived with an aunt in the Palestinian town of Qalqiliya, just a mile east of Kfar Saba, has been missing since yesterday, his family said. An uncle said Khatib was a supporter of the Al Aqsa militia.
Today’s blast was the first suicide bombing since an Islamic Jihad bomber blew himself up outside a cafe in the coastal city of Netanya on March 30, wounding 30 people.
At the time, the extremist group called the bombing “Palestine’s gift to the heroic people of Iraq.”
The renewed violence came a day after the incoming Palestinian prime minister completed forming a new Cabinet that is expected to clear the way for a new Mideast peace initiative.
Today’s attack underscored the difficulties the Palestinian premier-designate Mahmoud Abbas will face in subduing the militias – a key requirement of the US-backed “road map” to full Palestinian statehood within three years.
The “road map,” drafted late last year by the US, the EU, Russia and the UN, calls for an end to Palestinian attacks and a Jewish settlement freeze in the West Bank and Gaza.
Those actions could be followed as early as this year, by the creation of a Palestinian state with provisional borders. Final borders, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees are to be decided in later stages.
The presentation of the plan was in question for days, as Abbas and Arafat faced off over the formation of the Cabinet, particularly Abbas’ choice of former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan for a key security post. Dahlan has said he will not hesitate to crack down on Palestinian militant groups.
Yesterday, under intense international pressure, Arafat withdrew his opposition to Dahlan in exchange for assurances he would be consulted on major security decisions, which would presumably include the disarming of militias.
