(London Times) Hala Jaber - Jamal Abu Samhadana, 39, is founder of the Popular Resistance Committees, a Gaza militia blamed by Israel for a long series of attacks on settlers and soldiers including the destruction of three tanks by landmines in separate incidents in which seven men died. He is known to followers as "the Chef" because of his enthusiasm for making bombs with a variety of ingredients. Earlier this year he blew off part of his right arm while firing a rocket-propelled grenade at a Jewish settlement. A team of French surgeons from Medecins Sans Frontieres performed a 10-hour operation to save the injured arm. He regrets his organization's failure to carry out suicide attacks on civilian targets in Israel, saying it is too difficult to penetrate the Israeli security cordon around the Gaza Strip. Abu Samhadana received three years’ training in urban warfare and explosives techniques in East Germany in the 1980s and spent the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq, returning to Gaza in 1994 with Arafat.
2002-12-30 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive