Car Bomb Kills Top Hamas Leader in Syria


Islamofascit coward has his SUV detailed by Israel

By ALBERT AJI, Associated Press Writer

DAMASCUS, Syria - A car bomb killed a leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Damascus on Sunday, and Israeli security officials acknowledged that the Jewish state was involved.

Police at the scene were seen retrieving pieces of the body of Izz Eldine Subhi Sheik Khalil. His death was also reported on the official Hamas Web site and by Israeli security sources.

The bomb went off at 10:45 a.m. in the al-Zahraa district of the Syrian capital, the local Palestinian media center told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. A member of the Hamas political bureau, Mohammed Nazzal, told AP in Cairo, Egypt, that a bomb had been planted in Khalil's car and it exploded when he tried to start it.

Nazzal accused Israel of assassinating Khalil, 42, a top member of the group's military wing who used to work for Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli government and military officials declined to comment. But security sources in Jerusalem, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged Israel's responsibility.

Israel has killed top Hamas leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in recent years but it refrained from going outside the Palestinian territories.

But after a Hamas suicide bombing attack killed 16 Israelis in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba on Aug. 31, top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the army chief, warned that no Hamas leader — at home or abroad — was safe.

Vice Premier Ehud Olmert, a close confidant of the prime minister, said Israel's war on militants would reach "every place, every corner." He spoke at a memorial service for soldiers killed in the 1973 Mideast war.

Before the bombing, Sharon reportedly said during Sunday's Cabinet meeting that he had ordered the army to step up its war on Palestinian militants ahead of Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Sharon, who wants to pull out of the entire Gaza Strip by next September, said he told military leaders "to strengthen the war on terrorism" to make sure the withdrawal did not look like Israel is fleeing, participants at the meeting said.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two of the most active Palestinian groups that oppose the interim peace accords with Israel and stage attacks in the Jewish state, both maintain headquarters in Damascus.

Sharon last week reiterated a demand that Syria crack down on these groups. The United States also has stepped up pressure on Syria to stop sheltering militants.

Israel expelled Khalil from Gaza in 1993 along with a large group of Palestinians who spent weeks in the no-man's land between Israel and Lebanon as Lebanon initially refused to accept the deportees in protest against their expulsion.

In the Shajaiyeh neighborhood in Gaza, people converged on the Khalil family home to offer their condolences.

Khalil's brother, Rafik Khalil, blamed Israel and called his brother a "martyr."

"Since he left the country, we have had no contact with him because he chose to live a secret life," Khalil said.

Associated Press reporter Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.


Scumbag terrorist assumes room crispy temperature (well, what's left of him)