IDF reports increase in number of would-be suicide bombers

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Last update - 09:10 11/04/2006


IDF reports increase in number of would-be suicide bombers

By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent

Security forces have arrested 90 Palestinians suspected of planning to carry out suicide bombings in the first three months of this year - more than half the number of people arrested in all of 2005, according to security officials.

However, only one terrorist actually carried out a suicide bombing this year - the Fatah man who blew himself up in a car at the entrance to the West Bank settlement of Kedumim about two weeks ago, killing four Israeli civilians.

The suspects, who security forces said were either on their way to carry out an attack or had expressed their willingness to do so, belong to all the Palestinian organizations except Hamas, which has stuck to the Cairo agreement on maintaining calm in the territories. The organizations include Fatah and several Fatah offshoots, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.


This seems to indicate that the primary reason for the proportional increase in arrests is related to the change in Fatah's status since Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections and replaced Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' movement as the ruling party.

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/704743.html