JERUSALEM – U.S.-provided bullet-proof vests have reached Palestinian security forces in the West Bank, including units in which known terrorists serve, WND has learned.
The U.S. last week received a green light from the Israeli government to provide standard-issue police flak jackets to security forces from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization, which has had many members undergo advance U.S. training in recent months.
Israel had delayed the transfer of the flak jackets for almost a year, with defense officials here citing concern the protective gear could fall into the hands of terrorists.
Many Israel Defense Force soldiers and Israeli policemen operating in the West Bank don't wear flak jackets. The vests could provide Fatah gunmen cover to shoot at Israeli forces while deflecting return fire, Israeli defense officials said.
A senior Palestinian security official told WND the U.S. flak jackets have been delivered to Fatah's Preventative Security Service and Force 17 forces in the northern West Bank and should reach forces in southern West Bank areas, such as Hebron and Bethlehem, by next week.
Many members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist organization, including much of the group's well-known leadership, serve openly in Fatah security forces.
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The Brigades, the declared military wing of PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization, is responsible for scores of recent suicide bombings and hundreds of deadly shootings in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Although U.S. policy considers Fatah to be moderate, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is designated by the State Department as a terrorist group.
Abbas previously appointed senior Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leader Mahmoud Damra as commander of the Force 17 Palestinian security unit. Damra, who was arrested by Israel last November, was on the Jewish state's most-wanted list of terrorists.
Brigades terrorists who double as Fatah security officers are routinely arrested by Israel on terror charges.
In November, Israel arrested two Palestinian police officers who had been accused that month of gunning down Israeli Ido Zoldan in the northern West Bank. Immediately after the killing, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leaders called WND to take credit for the attack.
Israel captured two of the murderers, Abdullah Braham and Jafar Braham, who were Fatah police officers and members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. A third terrorist, Fadi Jamaa, also a Palestinian police officer, was later apprehended by Palestinian security forces.
In January, four armed Palestinians driving a jeep killed off-duty Israeli soldiers Ahikam Amihai and David Rubin as they were hiking with a woman just outside Hebron. Amihai and Rubin, both in their early 20s, managed to return fire before they died, reportedly killing one of the terrorists and injuring another. Their female companion was uninjured. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.
Also in January, the Brigades took credit for a shooting attack against an Israeli motorist near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Palestinian sources said the perpetrators serve in Fatah security organizations.
The U.S. flak jacket transfer is part of a larger, multimillion-dollar American training program for Fatah forces.
Since the late 1990s, the U.S. has run training bases for PA militias. The U.S. also has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid and weapons to build up the PA militias.
U.S.-run courses are currently training a new advanced police force billed as the most professional, capable Palestinian security force ever assembled. The police units are being built up to assume security control of the West Bank following the planned creation of a Palestinian state and any Israeli evacuation from the territory.
The U.S. runs training bases for the PA police in the West Bank city of Jericho and also at U.S.-operated bases in the Jordanian village of Giftlik.
Gen. Keith Dayton, the U.S. security coordinator to the Palestinian territories, last year initiated the U.S. taxpayer-funded advanced program, which trains 500 to 600 PA cadets at a time at the American bases.
The course in Jordan lasts for three months and includes training in the use of weapons, conducting ambushes, fighting street crime, fighting terrorism and dealing with hostage situations, among other things, according to informed security officials.
After the cadets successfully complete the training in Jordan, the students continue with more advanced training courses at the U.S.-run base in the West Bank city of Jericho.
WND reported the Nablus and Jenin units failed basic tests and have been incapable of fighting terrorism, according to informed security officials.
Terrorist: 'U.S. training helped us kill Jews'
Abu Yousuf, a senior officer of Abbas' Force 17 Presidential Guard unit in Ramallah, previously described to WND how his U.S. training helped him kill Israelis.
"I do not think that the operations of the Palestinian resistance would have been so successful and would have killed more than 1,000 Israelis since 2000 and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without these [American] trainings," said Yousuf, who is also a chief of the Brigades in Ramallah.
Yousuf received U.S. training in Jericho in 1999 as a member of the Preventative Security Services. He is a Brigades chief in Ramallah, where he is accused of participating in anti-Israel terrorism, including recent shootings, attacks against Israeli forces operating in the city and a shooting attack in northern Samaria in December 2000 that killed Benyamin Kahane, leader of the ultranationalist Kahane Chai organization.
After the Kahane murder, Yousuf was extended refuge by Yasser Arafat to live in the late PLO leader's Ramallah compound, widely known as the Muqata. Yousuf still lives in the compound.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last month granted Yousuf amnesty along with 178 other Brigades leaders reportedly as a gesture to Abbas.
Speaking during a sit-down exclusive interview for the book "Schmoozing with Terrorists," Yousuf said his American training sessions were instrumental in killing Jews:
"All the methods and techniques that we studied in these trainings, we applied them against the Israelis," he said.
"We sniped at Israeli settlers and soldiers. We broke into settlements and Israeli army bases and posts. We collected information on the movements of soldiers and settlers. We collected information about the best timing to infiltrate our bombers inside Israel. We used weapons and we produced explosives, and of course the trainings we received from the Americans and the Europeans were a great help to the resistance."
Yousuf described his U.S.-provided training:
"I myself received American trainings in Jericho. Together with my Preventative comrades, I received trainings in intelligence methods and military trainings. In the intelligence part, we learned collection of information regarding suspected persons, how to follow suspected guys, how to infiltrate organizations and penetrate cells of groups that we were working on and how to prevent attacks and to steal in places.
"On the military level, we received trainings on the use of weapons, all kind of weapons and explosives," Yousuf said. "We received sniping trainings, work of special units especially as part of what they call the fight against terror. We learned how to put siege, how to break into places where our enemies closed themselves in, how to oppress protest movements, demonstrations and other activities of opposition.
"We also learned to discover agents that Israel tried to plant in our cells," he said.
Yousuf stressed he "isn't talking about U.S. training in order to irritate the Americans or the Israelis and not in order to create provocations."
"I'm just telling you the truth," he said. "We applied against Israel all that we learned from the Americans."
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