BICOM

Israel’s domestic security agency, the Shin Bet, announced yesterday that it arrested three Palestinians, two from East Jerusalem, who had been recruited by an al-Qaeda activist in Gaza to carry out large-scale bombings on high-profile targets in Israel.

The Shin Bet said they made the arrests in late December after a Gaza man known as Arib al-Sham, who claims to work for al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, recruited the three men via Facebook and Skype. According to Haaretz, a Shin Bet official explained the arrests were made due to “the short distance that exists today between recruiting an operative over the Internet and using him to carry out a plan.”

Iyad Abu Sa’ara, 24, of Ras al-Khamis in East Jerusalem was arrested alongside Roubeen al-Najma, 31, of Abu Tor, an East Jerusalem neighbourhood where Jews and Arabs live side by side. As Jerusalem residents, both carry Israeli ID cards. The other suspect is Alaa Ranem, 22, from a West Bank village near Jenin. Abu Sa’ara’s plans are thought to have been most advanced. He reportedly learnt how to make explosives and was planning to facilitate the entry of several terrorists via fake Russian documents, who would carry out a double-suicide bombing on Jerusalem’s International Conference Centre and the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv. Abu Sa’ara then planned to hit first responders with a truck filled with explosives. The other two suspects reportedly planned to storm a bus near Jerusalem and kidnap an Israeli soldier, while al-Najima hoped to blow up a residential building of his Jewish neighbours in Abu Tor.

The plot will raise Israeli concerns over al-Qaeda’s ambitions to strike against Israel. In November, Israeli special forces killed three armed Salafi Jihadists near the Hebron Hills, while trying to arrest them, another indication of al-Qaeda ambitions. Israeli security officials will also be concerned at the involvement of Palestinian Jerusalem residents in the plot.