Wednesday, September 07, 2005 17:55 IST
JNW HEADLINE NEWSArafat killed in Gaza
By Stan GoodenoughSeptember 7th, 2005
A close relative of Yasser Arafat and co-founder with him of the Fatah arm of the PLO, Moussa Arafat, was dragged from his home and shot dead by masked Arabs Wednesday in what “Palestinian” officials called an attack on the “government” of PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas.
Credit for the assassination was claimed by the increasingly high-profiled Popular Resistance Committees.
The killing, described as “brazen” by a witnessing Associated Press journalist, was seen as a direct challenge to the Palestinian Authority and as indicative of a rapid slide towards inter-Arab anarchy and political violence, a week before Israel is scheduled to complete its final surrender of the Gaza Strip.
In a pre-dawn attack, as many as 80 Arabs reportedly opened small arms, mortar and rocket-propelled grenade fire at Arafat’s home, wounding some of his security personnel before charging the house, dragging their target out into the street and shooting him to death.
The assassins also allegedly kidnapped Arafat’s son.
A cousin or nephew (reports differ) of Yasser Arafat, the murdered man had helped to found the Fatah movement – ruling branch of the Palestine Liberation Organization – and was a senior member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council.
He had survived previous attempts on his life after being accused of corruption, charges which eventually led to Abbas removing him from his position as Gaza security chief but retaining him as a senior military advisor.
In its statement assuming responsibility for killing Arafat, the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) – a group headed by terrorists formerly from Hamas, Fatah, Tanzim, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – called their victim a “collaborator” and said they would explain their actions in a news conference later Wednesday.
Precedents set in the track record of the PLO suggest that the PRC is being purposely positioned to continue using the terrorism lever on Israel after the mainstream Fatah and Hamas movements “abandon” violence and enter the political race culminating in elections early next year.
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