U.S. official protected by Muslim terrorists

U.S. official protected
by Muslim terrorists
Chiefs of major Islamic militants
help surround American diplomat

Senior terrorists, including the chiefs of the most active West Bank terror organization, were part of an official Palestinian security team that protected a prominent U.S. envoy last week, WND has learned.

Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, U.S. security coordinator for the Palestinian territories, this past Thursday toured the northern West Bank city of Nablus, where he expressed support for a plan to achieve security independence for the Palestinians in the city.

Nablus is the stronghold of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the declared military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization. The Brigades took credit along with the Islamic Jihad terror group for every suicide bombing in Israel between 2005 and 2006.

In Nablus, Dayton met with Fatah security chiefs about a test they are planning to attempt to achieve law and order in the city.

"I'm here to show American support for this operation," Dayton told reporters. "I work very carefully with the Palestinian security forces, and I must tell you that I have very high regard for the Palestinian security forces."

"This is where the Palestinian state will get its first real test," Dayton said.

Dayton arrived in Nablus in an armored vehicle and was accompanied at all times by three American bodyguards, according to Palestinian security officials present.

The officials told WND they deployed three rings of Palestinian security officers around Dayton. The third ring, they said, consisted of about 200 Fatah security officers who encircled the vicinity Dayton was visiting.

WND has learned among those encircling Dayton as official members of the Palestinian security forces were Nablus' senior leadership of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, including Ala Sekakreh, the Brigades' West Bank chief, and Nasser Abu Aziz, no. 2 of the Brigades in the West Bank.

The Brigades is responsible for more terrorism from the West Bank than any other Palestinian Arab organization, carrying out thousands of shootings and grenade attacks.

Speaking about his role in protecting Dayton, Senakreh told WND he was "impressed" with the U.S. envoy's bodyguards.

"One of them could eat ten of our people," said Senakreh, who also commented he liked the "fancy" vehicle in which Dayton arrived.

Senakreh, along with other Brigades leaders, was granted amnesty by Olmert in June as a gesture to Abbas, but many Brigades members, including Senakreh's cell, are accused of violating the agreement by failing to disarm and by carrying out a spate of terror attacks.

'U.S. training terrorists'

The information terrorists protected Dayton follows the recent release of the new book "Schmoozing with Terrorists," which details how the U.S. has been arming, training, funding and coordinating security with members of Fatah's Force 17 and the Preventative Security Services who are also Brigades leaders.

The U.S. has been running bases in the West Bank City of Jericho to train Fatah militias since the late 1990s. Over the years, the U.S. also has provided Fatah militias with arms, reportedly including thousands of high-powered assault rifles during the past year alone.

In August, the State Department announced the U.S. will begin new training courses for Fatah militias in an effort to bolster Abbas against Hamas, which took over the Gaza Strip in June when the terror group easily defeated American-backed Fatah forces in the territory.

The U.S. training programs include courses in the use of weapons. They are being partially funded with a $86.5 million grant approved by Congress in April.

The Bush administration announced last week it is seeking more than $400 million in additional aid to the Palestinians.

Among the militants interviewed in "Schmoozing" is Abu Yousuf, a Force 17 officer who received American training in Jericho in 1999 as a member of the Preventative Security Services.

Yousuf is a chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades 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 the leader of the ultra-nationalist Kahane Chai organization, Benyamin Kahane.

After the Kahane murder, Yousuf was extended refuge by Arafat to live in the late PLO leader's Ramallah compound, widely known as the Muqata.

Yousuf still lives in the compound, where U.S. weapons are regularly delivered to Fatah. He is a ranking member of the Palestinian team that receives the American weapons.

Speaking through a translator, Yousuf said his American training was instrumental in attacks on Israelis.

"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," he said. "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 said the training included both intelligence and military tactics.

"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," he said.

"On the military level, we received trainings on the use of weapons, all kind of weapons and explosives," said Yousuf. "We received sniping trainings, work of special units, especially as part as what they call the fight against terror. We learned how to lay siege, how to break into places where our enemies closed themselves in, how to oppress protest movements, demonstrations and other activities of opposition."

Continued Yousuf: "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."

Yousuf seemed to anticipate criticism for speaking publicly about the training. He's not "talking about U.S. training in order to irritate the Americans or the Israelis and not in order to create provocations," he said. "I'm just telling you the truth."