A hand grenade was lobbed at the house of the head of the Palestinian Fatah movement in Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp on Sunday, according to a source in the camp.
The bomb was hurled at the front of Brigadier Mounir Maqdah’s home, causing no casualties. However, the grenade damaged a room used by his bodyguards.
Maqdah, who was not home at the time of the blast, told AFP that Israel’s intelligence services could be behind the assault and said an investigation has been opened. His group counts as the armed local wing of the Fatah movement.
Maqdah has said in the last few months that he has been training his fighters to launch suicide attacks in Israel and recently, the Israeli media have been reproducing his declarations.
Late last year, the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported that Maqdah had assigned a four-man hit squad in the Jilazun refugee camp in the West Bank to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon outside his home in East Jerusalem.
The four alleged assassins, Mustafa Hassan Abdul-Qader, Youssef Sharif, Khaled Ibrahim and Mustafa Nimr, were detained by Israeli forces. According to the newspaper, the squad planned to kill Sharon with a sniper's rifle from the window of Nimr's house, which is located near Sharon's residence. Maqdah allegedly provided the team with $5,000 and promised to provide additional funds and weapons. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
