MIDDLE EAST Al-Qaida eyes Israel, Palestinian territories
Israeli officials said some Palestinians have contact with an Al-Qaida leader.
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Signs are mounting that Al-Qaida terrorists are setting their sights on Israel and the Palestinian territories as their next jihad battleground.
Israel has indicted two West Bank militants for Al-Qaida membership, Egypt arrested operatives trying to cross into Israel and a Palestinian security official has acknowledged Al-Qaida is "organizing cells and gathering supporters."
Al-Qaida's inroads are still preliminary, but officials fear a doomsday scenario if it takes root.
Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon have established contacts with Al-Qaida followers linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq, according to two Israeli officials.
Footholds
Al-Zarqawi has established footholds in the countries neighboring Israel -- Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan -- and is interested in bringing his fight to Israel, too, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because Israel does not want to identify those involved in the issue.
Tuesday's indictment of two militants on charges of belonging to Al-Qaida and receiving funds from the group for a planned double-bombing in Jerusalem was Israel's most concrete allegation to date linking Al-Qaida to West Bank Palestinians.
The indictment described in detail how the two, Azzam Abu Aladas and Balal Hafnai, met with Al-Qaida operatives in Jordan, arranged for secret e-mail exchanges and received thousands of dollars from Al-Qaida to carry out the attack. The indictment came just three weeks after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the London-based Al Hayat newspaper that Al-Qaida had infiltrated the West Bank and Gaza.
Still, Mideast watchers warned against overstating the Al-Qaida presence because the issue is easily manipulated for political ends.
Much to gain
Israel has a lot to gain by portraying its local conflict with the Palestinians as part of the global war on terror, and Abbas, badly damaged by the recent political rise of Hamas militants, wants "to show that he is needed by the West," said Israeli security analyst Dan Schueftan.
Both Israeli and Palestinian security officials described Al-Qaida's activities here as incipient, involving a handful of local militants who reached out to Al-Qaida -- often via the Internet -- rather than the other way around. A senior Israeli military intelligence official said he thought there were no more than 20 Al-Qaida-linked activists in the Palestinian territories.
Most of them are unhappy with a year-old decision by mainstream Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas, to enforce a cease-fire with Israel, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.
Hamas, struggling to avert an international aid boycott in the wake of its Jan. 25 victory in parliamentary elections, is particularly sensitive about being associated with Al-Qaida, despite sharing core beliefs such as the rejection of a Jewish state in the Middle East.
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