(Ha'aretz) Amos Harel - Al-Qaeda tried to recruit Saudi air force pilots for a suicide attack on Israel similar to the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon said Tuesday. Ya'alon said this information came from the U.S. interrogation of arrested al-Qaeda members. Ya'alon said al-Qaeda had planned to use either a civilian plane or one of the F-15 jets belonging to the Saudi air force. In light of these plans, the deployment of F-15s at Saudi Arabia's Tabuk base, relatively close to the Gulf of Eilat, is "worrying," he said. Ya'alon also noted that Othman Yunis, the Palestinian Tanzim operative who planned last month's suicide bombing in Rosh Ha'ayin and was recently arrested by Israel, told his interrogators that he received money and instructions from both the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Lebanon and Fatah operatives based in Arafat's Ramallah compound.
2003-09-10 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive