Israel: "Major" bombing attempt fails at Haifa...

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Israel: "Major" bombing attempt fails at Haifa mall

www.jihadwatch.org/archives/025344.php


March 21, 2009
Israel: "Major" bombing attempt fails at Haifa mall
Economic jihad. Even a failed attack creates costs in terms of increased security and keeping people from going about their business. "Major terror car bombing averted at Haifa's Lev Hamifratz mall," by Yaakov Lappin for the Jerusalem Post, March 21:
A major terrorist car bombing was averted at a Haifa mall on Saturday night when one of several explosive devices hidden in a parked vehicle malfunctioned.
After being alerted by an employee of the Lev Hamifratz shopping center, who reported hearing an explosion, police sappers were dispatched to scan the area.
The sappers found a partially exploded bomb in the trunk of a white Subaru car which was parked outside the shopping center, and registered to a woman who lives in Jerusalem. A further search of the vehicle uncovered several more unexploded bombs, containing dozens of kilograms of explosive material, which were neutralized by the sappers.
"We believe this is a terrorist incident," a police statement said.
Police immediately moved to evacuate the mall, which was filled with shoppers at the time, and sealed off the area. A major traffic route adjacent to the mall was also closed off to traffic, as police went on high alert across the Haifa area.
On the ground, roadblocks sprang up and police presence was increased in crowded areas.
It was not immediately clear how the vehicle managed to get past security checks at the entrance to the mall....

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Israeli-Arab terrorist branch of Hizballah behind failed Haifa massacre

www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5979
By a fluke, the Free Galilee Brigades failed to bring off a multiple-casualty bomb attack on the Saturday night crowds at the Haifa Lev Mifratz shopping mall on March 21. But DEBKAfile's military sources report that security officials fear that the shadowy group, based in northern Israeli Arab villages and Jerusalem, is spreading its wings after killing 12 Israelis in a string of attacks since 2003.

The small blast which alerted the Haifa mall's security guards to a white Subaru parked outside the building was rigged to detonate 1,000 kilos of explosives with ball bearings in several packets hidden in the trunk in a chain reaction. By good fortune, the mechanism failed and no-one was hurt. Had it worked, the casualty count would have run to scores. The mall's shops and cinemas were cleared in seconds. Lacking an advance tip-off, Israel's counter-terror agencies were caught off-guard.

The focus on blocking Palestinian terrorist activity from the West Bank has led to their neglecting the danger from within, despite the spreading influence of radical elements in the Israeli-Arab community and the Lebanese Hizballah's clandestine penetration.

Police, combing the multi-storied mall for clues, have blacked out the Haifa mall investigation except for the fact that the bomb car is registered to a woman in Jerusalem.

DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources confirm that the Free Galilee Brigades has its headquarters in two large Arab villages in the North - Sakhnin and Deir Hanna. They recruit hit teams in local villages, such as Deir al Assad, Salameh and Maghar.

The Shin Bet's investigation of its first known operation, the murder of the Israeli soldier Oleg Shaikhat in 2003, exposed the source of the Galilee group's operational orders as Hizballah agents who had infiltrated Galilee and the West Bank to act as controllers.

Israeli authorities have tried hard to keep this connection and the Galilee group's lethality quiet in order not to ruffle the problematical relations with the Israeli Arab minority (one-fifth of the population, represented by 10 Knesset members).

The result has been to brush the threat posed by the Free Galilee Brigades under the official awareness carpet despite its lethal attacks.

On March 2, 2008, its members went on a shooting rampage on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem leaving 8 Israelis dead.

Less than a year ago, on July 11, 2008, the group shot dead two Israeli Border Guard officers posted at the Old City's Lions' Gate. The police insisted it was the work of a lone killer although it was similar to the murder of an Israeli security guard in an Old City alley in August 2007.

The guard's partner shot back and killed the terrorist, who was identified as Ahmad Hatib, from the Galilee village of Kafr Mandeb and a member of the Free Galilee Brigades.