Analysis: Palestine ripe for al-Qaida

AMMAN, Jordan, May 27 (UPI) -- As if the Palestinian issue needs more complications, there are growing indications that al-Qaida is penetrating the Palestinian territories to set up a presence in the heart of the Middle East conflict.

The indications, although hazy, are nevertheless raising serious questions and concerns over what an added al-Qaida factor would do amid inter-Palestinian tensions, deteriorating economic conditions and a comatose peace process.

Despite widespread doubts that al-Qaida has set up local cells in the West Bank and Gaza, the political, economic and social conditions in the territories are conducive for its successful penetration and the network will not ignore any opportunities.

Experts on Islamic militancy say the network targets weak countries to set up base and an infrastructure, as it has done in Afghanistan, Somalia and more recently in Iraq.

To establish roots, they add, al-Qaida, has mostly preyed on places where chaos and an absence of strong state institutions prevail, having faced fierce resistance from well-established states in the Arab and Islamic world.

It is no surprise that the organization would eye the Palestinian territories, an Israeli-occupied area where weapons are rampant, where there is an absence of a functional Hamas government under crippling international sanctions and a gradually collapsing Palestinian Authority.

On May 21, a group calling itself al-Qaida in the State of Palestine claimed responsibility for a bombing targeting the Palestinian intelligence chief in Gaza, Fatah's Tarek Abu Rajab, in which he was seriously injured.

A statement on an Islamic website, whose authenticity could not be verified, said the "mujahedeen" had detonated a bomb in a special elevator used by Abu Rajab, which killed one of his bodyguards.

The group threatened to kill other "apostate" Palestinian officials, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas and the powerful Mohammad Dahlan, a former security official from Abbas' Fatah faction.

However, many have placed doubts on the authenticity of the statement, with pundits saying if al-Qaida wanted to launch its operations in the occupied territories, where it enjoys little, if any, support on a grassroots level, it would have chosen an Israeli target, if only to try to gather local sympathy by a frustrated population living under occupation.

These analysts speculate the assassination attempt against Abu Rajab, which came amid sporadic fighting between Hamas and Fatah gunmen in Gaza, may have been carried out by "agents trying to play on the tension and ignite civil strife."

Independent Palestinian analysts say al-Qaida and its leaders have no support among the Palestinian people, having confined their violence against non-Israeli targets around the world.

They add the Palestinians generally resent al-Qaida for "exploiting and sabotaging the Palestinian cause" to launch its attacks that have mostly killed and maimed civilians, including dozens of Palestinians at a wedding party in a triple suicide attack in the Jordanian capital, Amman, last November.

The Palestinian Hamas group, which swept the January elections, has also cast doubt on an emergence of al-Qaida in the Palestinian territories, saying its people have a long history of resistance, armed or otherwise, and bin Laden's organization is not needed.

Hamas has repeatedly condemned attacks carried out by al-Qaida, especially in the Arab and Muslim countries, and its penetration at this time as Hamas faces escalating external and internal pressures to recognize Israel and renounce violence is the last thing the Palestinian movement needs.

Some Arab experts say the existence of Palestinian Islamic resistance movements following the methods of "jihad and martyrdom," such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas -- although the latter has been committed to a truce and has not carried out any attacks for the past year -- al-Qaida will unlikely have a real presence in Palestine.

But earlier this month, a group claiming allegiance to al-Qaida and its leader Osama bin Laden declared its formation in the Palestinian territories.

And in March, Abbas warned that al-Qaida was setting up cells in the Palestinian territories and Israeli intelligence officials said it was penetrating the area.

Two months ago, an Israeli court charged two 20-year-old Palestinians with belonging to bin Laden's organization, being recruited while studying in neighboring Jordan, and plotting to carry out a suicide attack in Jerusalem with al-Qaida funding.

The signs are strong and al-Qaida's history in choosing fragile locations is well-known.

However, it might not be al-Qaida as an organized structure that is making is way into the West Bank and Gaza.

Palestinian affairs experts say there is a rising jihadist trend within the territories that is finding willing volunteers amid a growingly frustrated youth, with nothing to lose and angered by the continued Israeli occupation, the economic repercussions of the sanctions and the internal political struggle.

This trend, they warn, is likely to attract even youth affiliated with Palestinian factions that have abandoned or suspended armed resistance against the occupation, having failed to achieve any political gains in retrieving national rights. This also constitutes easy prey for al-Qaida as an organization.

The Egyptian authorities last week said that Palestinians trained and financed a terrorist group to carry out a series of bombings in the Sinai Peninsula, killing more than 120 people. If true, it is a strong indication that this Islamic militant trend is already established and may be growing in the Palestinian territories, particularly in Gaza.

If the Palestinians continue to be isolated and the conflict with Israel abandoned by the world, al-Qaida, or at least similar to it, will not only emerge in the area, it will flourish. The conditions are ripe. It is only a matter of time.