Israel Assassinates Head of PFLP Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Monday August 27 4:40 PM ET (Via Yahoo) ISRAEL ASSASSINATES HEAD OF PFLP By Miral Fahmy RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israel launched a pinpoint missile strike on Monday to assassinate a Palestinian leader it accused of masterminding a wave of bombings, and Palestinian officials said it opened the door to full-scale war. Abu Ali Mustafa, a founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), died when helicopter gunships fired missiles through two windows of his top-floor office in a three-story building in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Within hours, the PFLP claimed responsibility for shooting and fatally wounding 38-year-old Jewish settler Meir Lichsenberg near Ramallah in a revenge attack. Palestinians said Mustafa was the most senior Palestinian political leader killed by Israel since Khalil Wazir, better known as Abu Jihad, was assassinated in Tunis in 1988. One missile decapitated Mustafa and the other ripped through his body while he sat behind his desk, his colleagues said. The United States said Israel's assassinations of Palestinian leaders were inflaming the Middle East conflict and, in language rare in official U.S. statements, urged Israelis to alleviate `the humiliations'' of the Palestinian people. The PFLP and Palestinian radicals threatened to escalate military attacks on Israeli targets. `The blood of Abu Ali Mustafa is very precious...We will respond to this crime in a bigger way. Israel will pay a heavy price for its crime,'' Maher al-Taher, politburo member and spokesman of the Marxist PFLP, told Reuters in Damascus. The strike against Mustafa was so precise the arched window frames were left intact. But the impact of the missiles turned the white outer walls black, demolished the office and left a lingering stench of seared flesh inside. Aides said Mustafa had received a phone call just before the attack, implying the call was made to check he was there. The PFLP opposes peacemaking with Israel and has carried out a series of car bombings since the start of the 11-month-old Palestinian revolt against Israeli occupation in which at least 537 Palestinians, 154 Israelis and 14 Israeli Arabs have died. `When you read his resume, you see it's soaked in the blood of all its (the PFLP's) Jewish victims throughout the years,'' said Raanan Gissin, a government spokesman. Israeli officials called him a `car bomb specialist'' and said his removal would prevent Israeli deaths. `TRACK-AND-KILL'' POLICY But PFLP leaders denied that Mustafa, who became PFLP chief after longtime leader George Habash stepped down in July 2000, was involved personally in plotting attacks against Israel. Israel has tracked and killed Palestinian figures for what it says is their role in attacks since a Palestinian uprising began last September. Israeli officials say it is self-defense, but Palestinians condemn such killings of more than 60 activists as state-sponsored murder. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa accused Israel of engaging in `mafia politics.'' Belgium, holder of the European Union's rotating presidency, said it was a `very serious act'' and urged both sides to halt violence and restore dialogue. Palestinian leaders denounced the attack as an escalation of the conflict and said it would have serious consequences. `By this sinful crime, the Israeli government has set the stage for a full-scale, unlimited war,'' the Palestinian Authority said in a statement. It announced three days of national mourning and thousands of people took to streets in Gaza City and in Jenin, Nablus, Bethlehem and Tulkarm in the West Bank calling for revenge. The army said one Israeli was wounded when Palestinian gunmen later shot from Beit Jala village just outside Jerusalem at the nearby settlement of Gilo. Israel has said it will not tolerate continued shooting from Beit Jala. Police said the military returned fire. The Israeli army and witnesses reported shooting at several locations in the West Bank and Gaza. DIPLOMATIC EFFORT OVERSHADOWED Despite Mustafa's killing, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said efforts were continuing to bring the sides together for new talks although careful preparation would be needed. The latest violence has overshadowed attempts by Germany to mediate a meeting between Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Peres on a truce that was brokered by the United States in mid-June but has never taken effect. The strike against the PFLP, which drew attention to the Palestinian struggle with a series of plane hijackings in the late 1960s and 1970s, followed two days of spiraling violence in which seven Israelis and four Palestinians were killed. Israeli warplanes, tanks and bulldozers flattened security posts in Palestinian areas on Sunday after gunmen killed three soldiers in a raid on an army base in Gaza and shot dead four Israelis in weekend ambushes. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcov-08.27.01-19:19:51-2708