Terror and the fight against it. Hunt for the Engineer
It was in the middle of 90, the Oslo process was just beginning - after Oslo concluded agreements between Israel and the PLO headed by Yasir Arafat, his thugs were returned to Gaza, Judea and Samaria, gave them power over their people and the ability to build their future the state is “territories in exchange for peace.” Idyll. Many Israelis believed then that this was the path to peace, because appeasement is any better than war. Is not it?
Yasser Arafat
But the idyll failed. Hamas (an organization not recognized as terrorist in Russia), competing with the PLO for influence on Palestinian street, offended by Israel, who chose Arafat as the only settlement partner, decided to prove who the real owner was in the Palestinian shop. And he began to organize demonstration attacks against Israelis.
These were not just acts of terrorism, but suicide attacks, which proved their effectiveness by Hezbollah (another organization not recognized as terrorist in Russia). The local genius, the head of the Hezbollah intelligence service, Imad Mugnii, organized explosions with hundreds of victims in Lebanon and Buenos Aires.
Imad Mugnia
The actions of suicide bombers very soon turned out to be the main instrument of Hamas, both in the war against the Israelis and in the work on raising their own prestige in the Arab environment.
There were a lot of them - Palestinian “death engineers” who prepared explosives and sent suicide bombers on missions. Among them were great masters of the manufacture of "shahid belts".
And yet, none of them can be put on a par with the generation of Hell, as Yahya Ayash was. If only because Ayash was the first in Hamas to decide to use suicide bombers in Israel. If only because no one else from the operational commanders of Palestinian terrorist organizations, with the exception of Mohammed Deif, the commander of the military wing of Hamas, could not remain so elusive for the Israeli special services. And also because on the conscience of Yahya Ayash the death of 54 Israelis, and its very elimination became for the Shin Bet (the Israel General Security Service) truly a matter of honor ...
For the first time, the name Yahya Ayash was brought to the attention of Israeli intelligence services in 1991 year. Soon it was already on the list of wanted terrorists, but Ayash struck his first serious blow only in November 1992 of the year.
Walking on Saturday in the village of Ramat Efal, located not far from Tel Aviv, one of its residents stumbled upon a car filled with explosives. Only thanks to a happy accident, the car did not explode, and soon ShABAK received operational information that behind this unfulfilled terrorist act was a graduate of the engineering faculty of the Palestinian University Bir-Zayt Ihya Ayash. It was on that day that Ayash got his nickname “Engineer”. And it was on that day that his photograph, obtained in the archives of the university, was placed in first place in the classics handed out to the soldiers of the IDF with the image of especially dangerous terrorists: it became clear that each additional day of this person’s freedom could cost Israel tens and hundreds of lives of its citizens .
Yahya Abd al-Latif Sati Ayyash was born in 1966 year in the small Arab village of Rafat in Samaria, west of Nablus. The family was rich enough, and Ayyash received a good education at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at Bir Zeit University, established in 1975.
He was attracted to a political career. As a young man, Ayyash joined the Muslim Brotherhood movement (banned in Russia). Here, at his local branch, Hamas, he became one of the leaders of the military wing, called the Isaddin al-Qasam Brigades in honor of the head of the Arab 30 terrorists of the last century, liquidated by the British.
Ayyash, who received a higher education and possessed higher intelligence than most of his peers, was assigned to the planning and organization of terrorist acts. He began to specialize in the creation of homemade bombs. As explosives, he decided to use acetone peroxide obtained from household chemicals, often referred to as the "Mother of Satan" for extreme instability and flammability.
The first experience was unsuccessful. In the autumn of 1992, a car with 12 kilograms of explosives after a chase was intercepted by police on the outskirts of Ramat Gan in Tel Aviv. When interrogating the three arrested terrorists for the first time, the name Ayyash emerged. Aiyash himself, it seemed, lay down on the bottom after the failure. But in reality it was not quite so.
In December, Hamas militants kidnapped in Lod and killed Nissim Toledano, a border guard soldier. In response, Yitzhak Rabin’s government deported 415 Hamas leaders to southern Lebanon. The expulsion went to their advantage. It was there that they lined up with representatives of Iran, who trained them in the preparation of high-quality explosives and the tactics of using suicide bombers.
Under pressure from the Bill Clinton administration, the Israeli government allowed the exiled terrorists to return to Judea, Samaria and Gaza. From them, Ayash, the rising star of the group, and adopted new terrorist methods. And then he engaged in their implementation in practice.
In April, 1993, the first action was held. A suicide bomber blew up a car with an improvised explosive charge, reinforced with two gas cylinders, at the Mekhola junction in the Jordan Valley. The explosion occurred at a time when his car was near two buses. Eight people were injured, but only the terrorist himself and his brother were killed.
But a year later, when a mined car crashed into Afula on a bus standing at the bus stop when people got into it, eight people were already killed, another 55 was injured.
A week later, the next attack occurred. Already without any car on the Memorial Day of those killed in the wars of Israel, a terrorist simply exploded in the city of Heder inside the bus, killing five and injuring another 40 people.
It was such acts of terrorism, which Ayash recognized as the most effective, and were put on stream. Following one after another, they killed, maimed and smashed hundreds of lives. Behind everyone's planning was Ayyash. Moreover, he himself collected bombs, he fastened them on suicide bombers, while simultaneously transferring the skills to his disciples and followers.
Ayyash nicknamed "The Engineer" became a symbol of the movement and the idol of the Arab masses. For the Israelis, he turned into the first line in the list of wanted terrorists.
After graduating from the University “Bir-Zait”, he, with his engineering degree, could easily lead a quiet and prosperous life. Possessing innate charisma, oratorical abilities and a cold analytical mind, Yahya Ayash could well become a legal Palestinian politician, taking a place next to his close associates belonging to the new generation of Fatah fighters in Yasser Arafat’s entourage. But, in spite of all these opportunities, which were so clearly revealed to him, Ayash chose a different fate - the fate of an underground worker, leading an incessant struggle with the Jews for life and death. And from this, it is easy to understand what a huge charge of hatred Yahya Ayash carried to Jews and to Israel, putting a piece of it in every bomb made by him for a suicide bomber.
But this hatred did not prevent Ayash from being a loving son, husband and father - Shabak was well aware that he was very attached to his mother, passionately in love with his wife and cherishes his only son born in 1991.
However, he rarely managed to see his son very rarely: Yahya Ayash was well aware that SHABAK keeps a close watch on all members of his family and as soon as he appears in the house of his mother or wife, he will be immediately arrested. Therefore, most of the time he spent in safe houses, but in the evening he would definitely leave the house in which he spent the day - to be sure that the Israelis did not attack his trail. Ayash often spent nights on the bare ground, in some grove or in the basement of an abandoned house. However, despite all the risks associated with the granting of asylum to him, many Palestinians considered it an honor to host the "great hero of the Palestinian people."
This active assistance to Ayashu of the local population made it extremely difficult for him to find and arrest in Judea and Samaria. But it was not only her. Like his friend Mohammed Deif, Yahya Ayash did not trust anyone and minimized the number of those who knew his whereabouts. To this end, Ayash deliberately extended the chain of communication even with his immediate subordinates: often several couriers through a number of villages and cities passed his order to one another, addressed to a person who was on the street next to him. In addition, like Muhammad Deif, Ayash possessed some kind of diabolical intuition, a sixth sense, which allowed him to escape several times through all the traps set for him under the very nose of the IDF soldiers and Shabak employees.
19 October 1994 of the year. Wednesday. Nine o'clock in the morning. Everyday day, each filled with their own affairs. Someone rushes to work, someone to meet, someone returns home ... Life ...
But on this day the life of twenty-two people was crossed out. It happened in Tel Aviv, in the heart of the country and in the heart of the “city without a break”.
A suicide bomber blew up a Dan company’s 5 bus, which followed Dizengoff Street. On 9: 00 in the morning, the bus was in 100 meters north of Dizengoff Square, and at that moment an explosive device went off. The explosion killed 22 people: 21 is a citizen of Israel and one citizen of the Netherlands. The explosion was so powerful that the body flew off the chassis, and all the plastic melted. Fragments of bodies scattered over a long distance and were even found on the roofs of nearby buildings.
At that time, this attack was the largest in stories Israel, as well as the first major terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. Hamas took responsibility, and Yahya Ayash personally declared about the organization.
He was preparing a series of attacks in protest against the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. His previous terrorist attack at the bus stop in Hadera claimed the lives of six people, which Ayash considered a failure: then he used acetone peroxide as explosives. For this attack, he collected a bomb based on an anti-personnel mine of Egyptian production with a power of 20 kg of trotyl, filled with nails and screws ...
Saleh Abdel Rahim Al-Suvi became a volunteer for the explosion. The day before the terrorist attack, al-Suvi recorded a message on a tape in which he stated that he would proudly accept death and go to heaven in the arms of 72 of eternal virgins.
Al-Suvi got to the bus stop thanks to the car driver Muatab Mukadi, who was personally subordinate to Ayash. Al-Suvi took a seat on the left side of the bus and put a bomb hidden in a brown bag under his feet. The bag was handed to him personally by Yahya Ayash.
In May 1995 of the year, somehow safely bypassing all the army and police cordons, Yahya Ayash moved from Samaria to densely populated Gaza. According to the recently concluded Norwegian agreements, Gaza was under the complete control of Yasser Arafat. And that means that Ihya Ayash could feel completely safe.
That is, formally, Ayash’s move to Gaza was, of course, on Israel’s hand, since the same Norwegian agreements included a clause according to which the newly created Palestinian autonomy was obliged to extradite particularly dangerous terrorists to Israel. But very soon it became clear that this item has exclusively “political significance” and is intended only to reassure the supporters of the right-wing camp, who argued that the Norwegian agreements pose a threat to Israel’s security. In fact, Yasser Arafat was not originally going to implement this clause of the treaty with Israel, and, in turn, neither the Prime Minister and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, nor the Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, did not even think to demand that Arafat fulfill it. For the simple reason that if Arafat really began to arrest and extradite to Israel "freedom fighters" and "heroes of the Palestinian people," then the days of his tenure and life itself would be numbered.
Yasir Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin during the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, understanding this and making another concession to Arafat, Rabin and Peres nevertheless hoped that Arafat would make some efforts to fight the terrorists. For example, he could not extradite Yhyu Ayash to Israel, but arrest him and send him somewhere to Libya and Algeria, from where Ayash could not organize terrorist acts against Israel.
It soon became clear that Arafat did not intend to do even this: under the cover of the Palestinian police trunks, Yahya Ayash felt very free in Gaza and continued to send one suicide bomber to another to Israel. By the fall of 1995, the number of victims of terrorist attacks organized by the “engineer” had reached 54 people killed and 530 injured. Moreover, by order of Arafat, the leaders of the "Hamas" and other terrorist organizations in Gaza were even assigned bodyguards from among the "Palestinian police" in case of possible assassinations. Knowing what was protected, he finally relaxed. It became clear to the Israelis that they would have to solve the problem on their own.
At the beginning of autumn 1995, as a result of operational actions, it became known that Ayash’s wife was going with her son to move to Beit Lahia village located in Gaza - closer to her husband.
It was decided that the Ayash family should not fix any obstacles to entry into Gaza. As soon as they settle in Beit Lahiya, keep an eye on the house. Engage the entire intelligence network, Aviation - In a word, all that is possible is for constant monitoring of the house and Ayash’s wife.
For the first time in these four and a half years, the insane chase for Ihya Ayash in Shabak gave rise to the conviction that it was not for long to run.
Throughout December 1995, the Shabak task force worked around the clock (precisely round-the-clock!) On the “Engineer” liquidation operation. The Shabak technical department, specialists of the company in cellular communications, the Defense Industry concern, etc. were involved in the case. At that time, the developed technology for eliminating Ayash was truly unique. However, at the same time it became clear that without the help of the Palestinians this operation could not be carried out. And the next crisis in the relationship between Hamas and Fatah in this sense turned out to be most welcome. Yasser Arafat never really complied with the clause of the Norwegian Agreement on the Extradition of Terrorists to Israel. But sometimes he allowed Israel to kill them even on the territory under his control. And sometimes, being in good spirits, even assisted. And it was all the more easy because none of the Palestinians really really knows where Hamas ends and Fatah begins, and vice versa ...
It is not known how the Israelis went to a successful construction contractor, Camil Hamad, the uncle and employer of Osama, whose house in Beit Lahiye, a northern suburb of Gaza, this time hiding Ayash. It is also unclear how they made him carry out the assignment. According to some reports, it cost a couple of million dollars, a fake passport and a visa to the United States.
The flip-up phone - the last squeak of the then fashion - weighed almost 350 grams. So 15 neatly embedded grams of plastic explosives were practically imperceptible. That is why Kamil probably didn’t guess that the phone was mined, considering that it only had a chip inserted for wiretapping. The day before, he briefly borrowed the phone he had given him from his nephew, and then returned it, asking him to keep it on.
Father called Yahya in the morning, as usual. Home phone in the house where the son lived, for some reason did not work. But his father was also known and the mobile phone number of the owner of the house - Osama, a childhood friend of his son, who was now hiding.
Such a luxury as a cell phone, of course, was not available to everyone at that time, but Osama had a kind Uncle Camille, a successful construction contractor - he had recently presented a phone to his nephew working for him.
Hearing a familiar voice, Osama handed his new gadget to his friend, the Alpha model from Motorola.
- Your father calls you.
- Hello, Dad, how is your health?
Leaving the room, so as not to interfere with the conversation of father and son, Osama, out of the corner of his eye, noticed how each friend pressed the tube closer to his ear.
The explosion sounded like a light slam, Osama did not even hear anything, just when after a few minutes he looked into the room, the “Engineer” was already lying on the floor. Instead of a head, a dark pool of blood spread out in all directions ...
Arafat’s people arrested Osama, but when, under torture, they could not get a confession, it became clear that he was only used blindly. The uncle was already far away, having abandoned his luxurious Mercedes and the huge house, elegantly lined with cream-colored stone tiles ...
The killing of Aiyash was a shock to the terrorists. The Hamas leaders were crushed, it turned out that even Arafat would not save them from the punishing hand of Israel, which, if desired, can get them in Gaza, and it is possible in any other part of the planet. No doubt, this somewhat sobered them and diminished their ardor and confidence. So, nothing was in vain: the liquidation of Ayash was not only an act of retaliation, but also a warning to all the other Hamas warlords ...
But the Israelites cheered up. By the time of the liquidation, Ayash had 76 killed Israelis, three and a half hundred injured and wounded, and thousands of those whose lives due to the loss of their parents, children, or loved ones had never returned to their former track.
Officially, Israel has never admitted its participation in the liquidation of a terrorist. However, ten years later, the former Shabak officials told some details in an interview, indirectly confirming that the destruction of one of the bloodiest terrorists was the result of their operation.
A incomplete list of terrorist attacks prepared by the "Engineer":
06.04.1994. Afula. A mined car crashed into a passenger bus. 8 dead, more than 50 injured.
13.04.1994. Hadera. Suicide attack on the bus. 6 dead, about 40 injured.
19.10.1994. Tel Aviv. Suicide attack on the bus. 22 dead, 50 injured.
22.01.1995. Crossroads Beit Lid, near Netanya. Explosion on the "Soldiers' Trempiad": 21 dead, about 70 injured.
09.04.1995. Gush Qatif (Gaza Strip). A mined car crashed into a passenger bus. 8 dead, about 40 injured.
19.05.1995. Jerusalem. Suicide attack on the bus. About 50 injured.
24.07.1995. Ramat Gan. Suicide attack on the bus. 6 dead, about 50 injured.
21.08.1995. Jerusalem. Suicide attack on the bus. 4 dead, about 50 injured.
As for Yahya Ayash, for the Palestinians this man, whose hands were not even elbow-length, but were on Jewish shoulders, remains one of the biggest national heroes.
In 2010, the administration of Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, formally at odds with Hamas, immortalized the name of Yahya Ayyash in the name of the government quarter in Ramallah. There Abbas now receives foreign visitors and his supporters. The streets in Jenin, Beit Lahia and the square in Jericho are also named after Ayyash. In 2005, the Syrian state television long before the current war, in which the Assad and Muslim Brotherhood tracks were finally divided, shot an 12-serial feature film about the "tragic death of a hero." His "exploits" continue to chant the grateful Palestinian people. Here's a heartwarming song about the Arabian dream. The background action for the clip-memorial, was the undermining of the bus company "Egged" - this is the clearest example of "high" Palestinian culture. Song creation is replete with "refined and precious pearls" of poetics:
“Rejoice, Brother Ayash, have blessed you for mercy,” they sing in the video. “You gave us a miracle, and not a single bus drive will be without scraps of tires and body fragments scattered around the neighborhood,” people in the Arafat are stomping.
"O the preacher, wrapped in an explosive belt." The story of the intifada will be told only with the roof of the bus flying away. ”
“About martyrdom asylum, make them cry. Make the fire consume them. Burning them piecemeal, burning them, pleasing the hearts of the adamant. "
“About martyrdom asylum, it is our duty to protect our people. You are the voice of honor within us. ”
“We long for the dead who fill the streets and for blood to increase the pain. May the Zionists leave the wrath of the avenging people. ”
"O the preacher, wrapped in an explosive belt." The story of the intifada will be told only with the roof of the bus flying away. ”
“About martyrdom asylum, make them cry. Make the fire consume them. Burning them piecemeal, burning them, pleasing the hearts of the adamant. "
“About martyrdom asylum, it is our duty to protect our people. You are the voice of honor within us. ”
“We long for the dead who fill the streets and for blood to increase the pain. May the Zionists leave the wrath of the avenging people. ”
Well, each nation has its own ideas of heroism and its own heroes ...
Sources:
The United States Counter-For-The-Terror For The Engineer: Israel’s Counter-Former’s Day 2002.
Lyukimson P. Intelligence in Hebrew. Secret materials. 2010.
Nepomniachtchi A. Deadly bell. 2016.
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