[A-List] Blowback on a global scale

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Suicide bombers urged to hit west
IAN BRUCE
The Herald, 5 December 2002

HIZBOLLAH, the Lebanese rebel movement which perfected mass-casualty suicide
bombings in the 1980s, is threatening to join al Qaeda in a terrorist
campaign against the west.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the cleric who heads the radical group, called on
his "suicide commandos" to export their brand of direct action "outside
Palestine" to achieve martyrdom against western targets.

Hizbollah bombers killed 241 US marines and scores of French legionnaires in
Beirut in 1983, establishing a pattern adopted by Osama bin Laden's network
in its strikes on US embassies in east Africa in 1998 and the September 11
attacks in New York.

Nasrallah's call to carry the fight overseas was broadcast yesterday on TV
in Lebanon's capital, triggering alarm from Washington to Tel Aviv.

He urged: "Martyrdom operations - suicide bombings - should be exported
outside Palestine. I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings
worldwide. Don't be shy about it."

In the past week Nasrallah has spoken at rallies in the Bekaa Valley and in
southern Lebanon. More than 30,000 supporters cheered his exhortation to
martyrdom.

Within a week of the Mombasa hotel bombing, he called on Palestinians to
widen their campaign of suicide attacks to other countries where Israel had
people or interests.

Although al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the Kenya atrocity, US
intelligence agencies suspect Hizbollah may have had a hand in staging last
week's car bombing and an unsuccessful missile attack on an Israeli
airliner.

In Kenya yesterday, the British High Commission closed its embassy until
further notice after receiving a specific security threat. Police were also
questioning three more men about the attacks, in which three Israelis died.

Hizbollah can field up to 10,000 fighters trained in Bekaa Valley camps by
Iranian revolutionary guard volunteers and is supplied with weapons and
ammunition flown from Tehran via Syria. It has several hundred "suicide
commando" volunteers.

Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, Israel's chief of staff, said yesterday
that the "unholy alliance" of Hizbollah and al Qaeda was already a reality
and "ominous in the extreme".

In Italy, police said they knew of no planned al Qaeda attack on Israel's
football team in October, despite an Israeli report that Italy helped foil
the plan with last-minute arrests.

The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted a security source in Rome as saying al
Qaeda was suspected of planning an attack against the Israeli team in Malta.
Police arrested six people a day before the European Championship qualifier.