Palestinians Say PA Security Forces Involved In Arafat Assassination

2005-09-08

Khaled Abu Toameh

The Jerusalem Post

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Many Palestinians in Gaza City said Wednesday's assassination of General Moussa Arafat, the former commander of the PA's Military Intelligence, and a nephew of Yasser Arafat, could not have been carried out without the involvement of at least one of the PA's official security branches.

Eyewitnesses reported that some of the gunmen who participated in the raid on Arafat's two-story villa in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood used armored vehicles belonging to one of the security organizations.

The attack began shortly after 3:30 a.m. when nearly 100 masked gunmen surrounded Gen. Arafat's house. After a brief gun battle with his bodyguards, the assailants stormed the house, shot Arafat in the legs and dragged him to the street, where they shot him at least 23 times in the head. Three of the bodyguards were moderately injured by gunfire.

A PA security official who arrived at the scene shortly afterwards said Arafat's body was found on a sidewalk about 100 meters away from his home. "Inside the house there was a lot of blood, especially near his bedroom," he recounted.

Abu Abir, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, the group that claimed responsibility for the assassination, told the Post that the attack lasted for only 20 minutes. He claimed that Arafat had opened fire from a rifle toward the attackers before he was subdued.

"After he ran out of ammunition, we caught him and dragged him to the front of his house, where he was executed," he said. "We wanted everyone to witness the execution so that no one would say that he was killed by mistake."

Abu Abir said his group would later issue a detailed statement about the assassination and its motives. He accused Arafat of corruption and murder and vowed to pursue other senior Palestinian officials involved in similar "crimes" against the Palestinians. "We have a comprehensive plan to fight rampant corruption in the Palestinian ministries and institutions," he added.

A Palestinian Military Intelligence officer in the West Bank held PA Interior Minister Nasser Youssef responsible for the assassination and urged him to resign immediately.

The officer, Maher Fares, told a press conference that he wondered why the security forces didn't react quickly to the attack on Arafat's home, which is located only a few meters away from the headquarters of the Preventative Security Force. Hamas denied any link to the slaying, saying it was opposed to "political assassinations regardless of the motives and justifications."

Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, said the PA was no longer capable of maintaining law and order and providing security for Palestinians. "The Palestinian territories are witnessing a serious deterioration in security," he said. "The main reason for this is the Palestinian Authority's failure to control its security organizations."

Source: IMRA – Independent Media Review and Analysis