(Institute for Counter-Terrorism/Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya) Ely Karmon - In a statement faxed to Reuters after Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. air strike, Hamas said it mourned "brother-fighter Abu Musab...who was martyred at the hands of the savage crusade campaign which targets the Arab homeland, starting in Iraq." Hamas denied the statement but hailed him as a symbol of resistance to occupation. Sami Abu-Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said that Hamas "reiterates its supportive position to all liberation movements and foremost the Iraqi liberation movement, for which Zarqawi was one of the symbols in the face of the American occupation." The regional and global al-Qaeda associates face a challenging situation. Possible directions for al-Qaeda could be to concentrate the main effort on two arenas: Egypt and Gaza. Egypt, because of its regional significance and the difficulty the security authorities seem to have in quelling the local groups in the Sinai and Cairo. Egypt is also an easy gate to penetrate the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.
2006-06-23 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive