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CNN Live Today

A Look at a Suicide Bomber

Aired March 22, 2002 - 14:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: In the Middle East today, the same group that claimed responsibility for yesterday's suicide attack says it carried out today's attack, as well, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is the radical militant arm of Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization. Today, an Israeli defense force officer wounded at a checkpoint on the West Bank border. Yesterday's attack far more destructive. And as we hear now from CNN's Mike Hanna, born out of generations of hatred.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE HANNA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A sadly familiar scene: The aftermath of yet another bomb attack in Jerusalem. Killed here: Three Israelis, dozen wounded. Also dead on the scene, the man who strapped explosives to his body, packing in nails and steel nuts to cause the maximum amount of injury. His name, Muhammad Shahayka, a 22-year-old Palestinian policeman.

Among members of his family in the West Bank village of Talooza, no sympathy expressed for those killed and wounded. "I'm proud of my son," says his father, flanked by members of the Al Aqsa Brigades of which Shahayka was a member. The brigades, an armed offshoot of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

"We are willing to give more martyrs in order to defeat injustice and oppression," says an Al Aqsa man. "Don't cry, don't cry," another tells the family. "I was expecting that he would become a martyr," says Shahayka's mother, and this statement no surprise. For even as the wounded were being treated after the bomb blast in Jerusalem, details were emerging that Shahayka had long planned a terror attack.

These pictures of him planning a suicide mission were taken in February. Shortly afterward, Palestinian security forces, having heard of his intention, arrested him. Israeli security officials say they were informed of Shahayka's arrest and agreed that he'd be transferred to a prison in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority said he would be more secure.

But during the massive military offensive by Israeli forces in Ramallah earlier this month, Shahayka was allowed to go free. This fact confirmed by Palestinian security sources, who contend that he was not safe in the prison during the Israeli siege.

Once again at liberty, Shahayka evaded the Israeli forces and began planning another attack. This, the result: More Israeli deaths, more Israelis injured, more evidence, says Israel, that the Palestinian Authority must bear direct responsibility for acts of terror. Palestinians say, in this case, an attack Israel helped bring upon itself.

Mike Hanna, CNN, Jerusalem.

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