Ezzedin al-Qassam, the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, claimed responsibility Tuesday for a weekend bombing in Israel that left three Israelis dead, as well as the bomber, according to a statement received in Beirut.
"We said that 10 'kamikazes' of the Ezzedin al-Qassam group were ready for martyrdom in heroic operations, and we kept our promise on Sunday. The hero and martyr Ahmad Omar Alian, 23, was the first hero," said the statement, received by AFP.
Ezzedin al-Qassam, which has conducted a bombing campaign against Israel since the 1993 Oslo peace accords, had vowed to greet incoming Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a series of attacks when he takes office.
It said it has "more than 10 suicide bombers ready to strike the Zionist entity."
Alian blew himself up in the middle of rush-hour crowds in the Israeli coastal resort of Netanya on Sunday, killing three other people and injuring dozens more, in an attack that Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon blamed on Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority for releasing militants from its jails -- BEIRUT (AFP)
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