- Israel is poised to snatch Yasser Arafat from inside
his Ramallah bunker and dump him into exile in South Lebanon. For the past
two weeks an eight-man snatch squad from Israelís military intelligence,
Aman, has been rehearsing inside a secret military base near Israelís
nuclear and bio-chemical site at Dimona in the Negev Desert.
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- Using a CH53 Stallion, a heavy lift helicopter whose
engine and rotor-blade have been specially muffled, the team has perfected:
How to swoop down on Arafatís compound.
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- How to douse the compound with CS Tear Gas.
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- How to blast their way into Arafatís second floor
quarters and snatch him.
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- >From start to finish the operation has been timed
to take no more than two minutes.
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- The plan has been personally approved by Ariel Sharon
and has the tacit approval of President Bush.
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- "We believe the intention is not to kill Arafat
but to completely humiliate him by dumping him in the wilds of South Lebanon,"
a senior British intelligence source said.
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- He confirmed MI6 know the Israeli plan has led to unprecedented
opposition from Efraim Halevy, director of Mossad's prime intelligence
service.
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- Sources close to Halevy have said he will resign if the
plan goes ahead. He has given two reasons to Sharon for doing so. The
snatch could result in Arafat being killed by one of his own men in cross-fire.
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- The political fallout from snatching Arafat could lead
to a widespread uprising ñ and ìvery likely lead to an all-out
regional conflict,î said a Mossad source.
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- "Arafat has said he does not fear becoming a martyr.
If he is killed Israel will be blamed. That could light the final fuse
that will lead to an all-out war. The problem is that Sharon sees removing
Arafat as his personal mission. Now he has been given the green light
by Bush to go ahead," the senior Mossad added.
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- But the snatch team are on hard-stand readiness to launch
the most daring operation Israel has launched since the kidnap of Adolf
Eichmann.
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- The operation is also reminiscent of Israelís
celebrated raid on Entebbe. Then, 103 Jewish hostages held by terrorists
were rescued by Israeli commandos under the very nose of Ugandaís
dictator, Idi Amin. The operation was led by Lt Col Yoni Netanyahu, the
brother of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who was killed
during the attack.
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- The snatch-Arafat operation calls for similar precision
timing. Using state-of-the art electronic monitoring equipment - provided
by America's 'spy in the sky' National Security Agency - Israeli specialists
stationed on the edge of the Ramallah compound are already able to use
their image-finders to monitor every move inside the headquarters building.
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- A team of specialists from Mossad's yaholomin unit have
established an electronic net over the buildings to hear every whisper.
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- Israeli air force helicopters will provide additional
surveillance from the air. They will act as the 'point team' as the Stallion
helicopter approaches.
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- As it sweeps down at roof height over the compound, Israeli
engineers will black-out the area.
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- The snatch team will hit the ground running. Gas-masked
and wearing one-piece 'black ops' suits and rubber-soled boots, they will
be directed by the ground surveillance teams to where Arafat is hiding
in the building.
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- The members of the snatch squad will race to grab him.
The others will continue to douse the area with gas. Resistance will be
met with close-quarter fire.
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- Once on board the helicopter, Arafat will be flown out
to sea and up the coast to South Lebanon. The flight time is estimated
to be just over 30 minutes. The chopper will dump him and fly back the
way it came.
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- "For Arafat, it will be the endgame. There will
be no way back for him. He will be a laughing stock to the Arab world,"
said a British intelligence source.
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- Arafat has a long history of cheating death. He has
survived assassination plots, an air crash and several bids to unseat him
during more than 30 turbulent years of rule. He has never shown any desire
to quit as leader and made that quite clear last week when he heard of
the US President's vision for Middle East peace without Arafat in power.
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- He first hit the international headlines after Israel's
defeat of its Arab neighbours during the Six Day War in 1967. As leader
of the Fatah group, he led guerrilla attacks against the Israelis from
bases in Jordan and in 1969 became chairman of the Palestine Liberation
Organisation.
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- His first 'great escape' came in 1970 when, after Palestinians
hijacked three airliners to Jordan, King Hussein ordered his forces to
attack Palestinian strongholds. After nearly two weeks of heavy fighting,
the PLO withdrew and he left Aman in disguise.
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- The following decade he controlled a 'state within a
state' in southern Lebanon, a country divided by a bitter civil war at
the time. However his Palestinian rule came to a bloody end when Ariel
Sharon, then Israelís Defence Minister, called for the invasion
of Lebanon and the siege of Beirut, where Arafat and his military were
surrounded.
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- Defiant as ever, he survived numerous attempts by the
Israelis to kill him and eventually was allowed to leave Beirut in 1982
with his men under a deal brokered by Washington. Within a year in the
northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, the Palestinians were forced out once
more by Syrian forces. Arafat continued to rule in exile from Tunis and
survived several attacks launched by Israeli agents who managed to get
close enough to assassinate Abu Jihad, his long-serving deputy in 1988.
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- Arafat entered a new phase and opted for diplomacy instead
of guerrilla warfare which led to the signing of a peace agreement with
Israel at the White House in 1993 and returning to a heroís welcome
in Gaza the following year.
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- He then survived a plane crash in the Sahara Desert although
three crew members died. Any hope of a new Palestine evaporated two years
ago when he refused to accept all of the terms of a peace deal at Camp
David. As a result his forces joined in an armed uprising against Israel.
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- The effect of that has since led to the virtual destruction
of his Palestinian Authority and he spend most of this year under Israeli
siege in his West bank compound in Ramallah which is still surrounded by
Israeli tanks.
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