Roundup: Israel's quick action averts disaster in cross-border attack
- Fan Xiaolin
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E-mail Xinhua, August 6, 2012
Roundup: Israel's quick action averts disaster in cross-border attack
by Gur Salomon and Dave Bender
JERUSALEM, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- Israeli army's Chief of Staff Lt.- Gen. Benny Gantz said Monday that a fast, decisive military response prevented a disastrous outcome to a cross-border raid launched from Egypt Sunday night.
"A major disaster was averted," said Gantz during a tour of the Kerem Shalom cargo facility, a border crossing connecting Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Gantz was accompanied by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and senior army officials.
Speaking with troops who pursued and engaged the militants, Gantz said the attack was thwarted within 15 minutes after it began in a joint operation that involved intelligence agencies, the Air Force, infantry and armored units.
"The attack is a testimony that terrorism emanating from the Sinai has ratcheted up a notch," Gantz said.
In one of the biggest attacks launched from Sinai since the ouster of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak early last year, several dozen Gaza militants Israel said were affiliated with Global Jihad raided an Egyptian security checkpoint facing the crossing Sunday night, killing at least 16 security personnel and wounding several others.
Moments later, the assailants hijacked an armored personnel carrier (APC) and a truck and then headed towards the crossing, intent on breaching the border.
The truck, which contained explosives, detonated prematurely as it rammed through a section of the fence near the border terminal. The APC, which crossed into Israel, was quickly hit and destroyed by an Israel Air Force aircraft.
"The incident," said Barak, "that could have transpired with all the explosive material that was brought in the small truck that exploded at the start, as well as the suicide bomber belts on the six to eight terrorists who were in the armored vehicle ... there is no doubt that if they had entered a town here or an army bases by surprise, they could have caused very serious damage."
"Once again," he said, "it was proven here how acute intelligence, a quick response, and operational capabilities, can make all the difference," according to a statement sent to Xinhua.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai said the assailants indiscriminately fired a heavy machine gun while attempting to breach the border. Military sources told Xinhua that Israeli troops shot and killed six gunmen who fled the vehicle before it was struck from the air.
Army radio reported that the attackers were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, shrapnel grenades, protective vests and other standard military gear, which attested to their preparation to target Israeli civilians and soldiers.
Military officials said early intelligence provided by Israel's Shin Bet security service on an impending attack from the Sinai prevented a lethal "mega-attack."
Netanyahu expressed his condolences over the deaths among the Egyptian soldiers.
"Both Israel and Egypt have an interest in keeping the border between us quiet," he said, adding that, "together with that, it's clear that time after time, when it comes to the security of Israeli citizens, the state of Israel can and must only rely on itself.
"There is nothing that can fill that role than the IDF and state of Israel's security apparatus, and thus will we continue to act," Netanyahu said in a statement sent to Xinhua.
The Egyptian Sinai, a vast desert expanse that flanks Israel's western border, has in the past year and a half become a hotbed of terror activity by numerous groups, some of which are linked to al- Qaida and radical Salafist Islam. Their presence has turned the peninsula into a staging ground for numerous attacks and cross- border smuggling.
No group claimed immediate responsibility for Sunday's attack, although local media and the army averred that Sinai-based Bedouin mercenaries, who were part of a larger terror cell, may have been involved in planning and executing the assault.
A short time before the attack, dozens of rockets and mortar shells fired from Gaza exploded in open areas near Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, a nearby farming community. Israeli tanks fired 15 shells and heavy machine gun fire towards the source of the fire.
Earlier on Sunday, an Israeli air strike in nearby Rafah in Gaza killed one militant and wounded another. The army said the two were involved in plotting a cross-border attack in June which killed an Israeli contractor heading for work on the security barrier being built along the Egyptian border.
"One of the terrorists, Ahmed Sai'd Isma'il, a resident of Tufach, was among those responsible for the execution of the terror attack adjacent to the Israel-Egypt border," the IDF said in a statement sent to Xinhua.
"Over the past a number of weeks, Achmed Sai'd Isma'il as well as E'id Nadi Ucaal, a resident of Rafah, in addition to several other Global Jihad members were operating in order to execute a terror attack against Israeli civilians via the Israel-Egypt border," the army said, adding that it would "not tolerate any attempt by terrorist groups to target Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers."
The army flatly dismissed reports suggesting that the attack came in retaliation for the targeted assassination, and said there was no connection between the events.
Barak said he hoped that the attack would serve as "a wake-up call to the Egyptian leadership to retake control of the Sinai," noting that the attackers' modus operandi again raises the need for "decisive Egyptian action to impose security and prevent terrorism" in the area.
He lavished praise on the military and Shin Bet for foiling the attack, saying that they had "shown vigor, clarity and purposefulness in thwarting an attack that could had resulted in many casualties."
Nitzan Nuriel, who until recently headed the Counter-Terrorism Bureau at the Prime Minister's Office, echoed Barak's comments that militant groups operating in the Sinai are growing bolder.
"There's no doubt that the terrorists who carried out the attack took a big risk by killing the Egyptian security personnel. These are Global Jihad elements who are entering the terror equation in the area, and that is definitely problematical," Nuriel told Army Radio.
Meanwhile, thousands of residents of Israeli communities adjacent to the border early Monday were called to return to routine activities, after being forced to spend the night in bomb shelters and behind locked doors while troops combed the area for militants.
In Egypt, newly-elected President Mohamed Morsi convened the supreme military council for an emergency session, saying that he had instructed security forces to hunt down and arrest "those responsible for attacking our children."
Morsi, who ordered the shutdown of the Rafah border crossing in the wake of the attack, vowed to attain "full enforcement in these areas in Sinai." Enditem
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