http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Security/11437.htmAn elite IDF unit arrested a senior commander of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade, Khaled Shawish, in Ramallah on Monday, the Jerusalem Post reported. Officials said that Shawish was behind dozens of attacks, including suicide bombings in Jerusalem as well as shooting attacks on roads in the Ramallah area. He was believed responsible for eight murders, and dozens of injuries. One of those killed Rabbi Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane, son of Rabbi Meir Kahane, and his wife Talia, both U.S. citizens in December 2000. Five of their children were seriously wounded.
Conspiracy theorists persist in believing that the murder of Kahane and his family, like the assassination of his father, was a professional hit carried out with the complicity of the Israeli government, including the knowledge of current minister Avi Dichter, who visited the Kahane family a month after the murder.
Shawish, deputy to Ramallah-area commander of Arafat's Force 17, Mahmoud Damra, also organized the murder on October 30, 2000 of U.S. citizen Esh-Kodesh Gilmore. According to a report in Haaretz, Shawish was personally involved in the shooting of the Kahane family.
For seven years Shawish, 36, evaded arrest by Israeli security forces, making him one of the most wanted figures in the West Bank.
But on Monday afternoon a joint IDF, Police Counter-Terrorism and Shin Bet operation led a Special Forces team to arrest him in his car in Ramallah. He was armed but reportedly indisposed. World Net Daily reports that "According to Israeli security officials and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades sources in Ramallah, Shawish was arrested after the Israeli police stormed his jeep, which was parked in a lot outside the Muqata, about 200 feet from Arafat's grave. The sources said at the time of his arrest, Shawish was having intercourse in the back seat of his jeep with a Palestinian woman," who was not his wife. The WND reported added that "The Brigades, founded by Arafat, largely considers the late PLO leader's resting place to be a sacred site. " Shawish was evidently paying his respects.
Originally from Jenin, Shawish has spent the past several years hiding in the Muqata compound in central Ramallah and was one of the many who barricaded themselves inside the compound during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, ynet reported. He also directed the 2002 suicide bombing of King George Street in Jerusalem, a second suicide bombing in 2002 carried out by a female bomber near Jerusalem and a shooting attack at the French Hill neighborhood in northern Jerusalem.
Shawish was wounded in a shootout with IDF troops during an arrest attempt in 2001 but managed to escape. His injuries eventually made him handicapped and he reudced his involvement in terror operations but, officials say, continued to be heavily involved in planning them.
Topic: Wanted terrorist, murderer of Rabbi Kahane's son, caught while having sex (Read 2976 times)