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Yamam - Israel's SWAT Team

(JTA) Dan Baron - When Hamas mastermind Abdullah Kawasme, responsible for terrorist bombings that had killed 52 people in Israel, saw a group of men transporting diapers in Hebron, he didn't know they were undercover Israeli agents, members of Israel's crack SWAT team known as the Special Police Unit - Yamam in Hebrew. The squad pulled out pistols and ordered him to stop. Kawasme tried to flee, so the men shot to kill, then melted away into the night. Assaf Hefetz founded the unit in 1975, a year after Palestinian gunmen took over a school in the northern Israeli town of Ma´alot, killing 23 children and 5 adults. He says, "When the team goes in, it knows all that can be known about the site and the terrorists. After that, it comes down to fitness and fighting spirit....Luck is not an option." Some Yamam operatives go undercover in Palestinian territory, disguising themselves as veiled matrons or elderly sheikhs, donning traditional Arab garb, darkening their faces with soot and cosmetics, and even going on week-long hummus-and-kebab binges in order not to be betrayed by a "Western" smell to their sweat. Sometimes, Yamam strikes without taking credit. Its demolition experts are adept at "tainting" bomb-making materials so that they explode upon assembly. The parts are then passed on to unsuspecting terrorists by way of Palestinian collaborators. The resulting premature blasts - commonly referred to as "work accidents" - have the double benefit of ridding Israel of a few more terrorists, and strategically sowing uncertainty among Palestinians as to whether they can trust their own bomb-makers.
2003-08-29 00:00:00
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