(BBC) Martin Asser - Dr. Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at St. Andrews University, said Sheikh Yassin "was the only person who was able to unify the different strands of Hamas, in the West Bank and Gaza, and abroad, and there is no obvious person who can fill his shoes." "Israel has long experience in how to deal with Hamas. It knows how to counterbalance the various factions and where to apply pressure - after all it has the addresses of every single Hamas leader, and it knows where to find them," he says. "Every time I met Yassin and other senior Hamas figures, they were consistent about one thing. They will create a Palestinian state by 2022 or 2023, with demography and Islamic revolution in Jordan and so on - everything else for Hamas is just tactical maneuvering," he said.
2004-03-24 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive