Was Arafat Responsible for the PLO Gun Ship?

Seamen admit: we reported every step to the PA

Yedioth Ahronoth (p. 7) by Alex Fishman —

Members of the Israeli intelligence service burst into laughter when they heard Arafat’s announcement that he proposed establishing a committee to investigate the affair of the Karine-A arms ship. This was because the two central figures in this affair, those who engineered the weapons purchase and its method of smuggling, are regular members of Arafat’s entourage. The two are the deputy commander of the Palestinian naval force, Fathi Razem, and the director of the financial administration of the National Security Service, Fuad Shubaki – the man in charge of financing the Palestinian security mechanisms. The two men are permanent members of Arafat’s entourage. They do not make a move without him because they both know that if they attempt to move without the immunity of Arafat’s entourage, Israel will arrest them.

For months they have been acting exactly like wanted men. Every time they wanted to go from place to place, Arafat flew them in his helicopters. Surveillance of flights by the two men has already become part of the folklore of intelligence personnel in Israel who follow their moves. Razem is now abroad, apparently due to the Karine-A deal, and it is apparently technically difficult for him to return to the Palestinian Authority. On the other hand, Fuad Shubaki is stuck in Ramallah. When Arafat is grounded, he is also grounded. Two weeks ago he attempted to play it smart and leave under another “umbrella,” that of Col. Mohammed Dahlan, the commander of Preventive Security Service in Gaza, who was also a partner in the secret of the weapons ship affair, according to sources in the security establishment.

Dahlan suddenly asked to go to Libya in order to raise money for the Palestinian Authority. From the outset this request looked strange to Israel. And then Dahlan added a request: to have Fuad Shubaki join him. Israel already knew about the Karine-A and Shubaki’s involvement in the affair. Dahlan’s request to have Shubaki join him was denied and he set out for Libya on his own. On his way back he stopped off in Egypt. It is believed that Shubaki thought he could reach Egypt under Dahlan’s protection to supervise from close up the loading of the weapons onto small ships at the port of Alexandria.

Incidentally, four months ago Shubaki set out for Iraq via the Allenby Bridge, and stayed there for some time. When he wanted to return, Israel did not approve his return to the territories. Finally after a month and a half, he succeeded in coming back to Ramallah on Arafat’s helicopter. Sources in the security establishment say that the commander of the ship, Col. Omar Akawi, who is the director of the Palestinian shipping authority, told GSS interrogators all of the details of the chain of events in the affair. According to them, he said in his interrogation that he reported to Adel Mugrabi, the weapons buyer for the Palestinian Authority and the man apparently responsible for negotiations with the Iranians, on every action he took during the sail.

Security sources say that all four Palestinians who were arrested on board the Karine-A vessel are cooperating with the GSS interrogators, and that their detailed confessions prove that the Palestinian Authority is behind the smuggling attempt.

Together with the four Palestinian who were arrested on the ship, nine crew members were also arrested who are Jordanian and Egyptian citizens. The GSS is also interrogating them, but it appears that they did know what type of cargo they were carrying and thought that this was a regular sailing. These crew members only discovered that this was a ship carrying weapons after one of the crates broke open and its contents were exposed. They protested the dangerous “cargo,” but the Palestinians threatened them “not to open their mouths.” It is possible that these nine crew members will be returned to their countries today.

The investigation uncovered the fact that Adel Mugrabi was the one who purchased the ship in Lebanon two months ago, for USD 400,000. From Lebanon it continued on to Sudan, where it met up with its Palestinian crew. Later on the Karine-A continued on its way to Dubai via the port of Hudeida in Yemen where it unloaded the cargo it was carrying, and began to sail in the direction of Iran. Near the island of Qeys in Iran it hooked up with a ferry loaded with crates of ammunition, and the crates were transferred from the ferry and loaded onto the ship.

The plan was to transfer the ammunition from the ship to three smaller vessels at the port of Alexandria in Egypt. The smaller boats were to draw close to the coast of Gaza, and to throw into the sea the special floating containers developed by the Iranians for the smuggling effort.

The investigation revealed the fact that the Hizbullah organization was also connected to the affair. Personnel connected to Hizbullah Deputy Secretary General Imad Mugniyeh, who appears on the American list as an international terror operative, were those who actually transferred the weapons from the ferry to the Karine-A off the coast of Iran. In general, according to the security establishment, Mugniyeh’s men mediate between the Palestinian Authority and the Iranians on a regular basis, in order to conceal Iran’s role in connection with the Palestinian Authority. However, senior personnel from the Palestinian smuggling mechanisms have a direct connection with members of the Revolutionary Guards and with Iranian intelligence.

It was also discovered that a technical fault on the ship held the campaign up by two days. The defect forced the ship to alter its course and sail to the port of Hudeida in Yemen. The repair took two days and only after it was completed did the ship continue on its way.

Security sources: “All the strings lead to Arafat”.

Ma’ariv (p. 4) by Eli Kamir and Yoav Limor —

The cabinet will soon hold a strategic discussion on the question of Israel’s relationship to the Palestinian Authority. One of the possibilities being weighed by the prime minister: to declare officially that the Palestinian Authority is an enemy of the State of Israel. The significance of such a decision: severing all ties between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and relating to its forces as to enemy forces.

The Prime Minister’s Bureau is now waiting to see the effect of Anthony Zinni’s mission, and whether indeed the American envoy’s involvement brings about a drastic change in the way the Palestinian Authority does business, “but no one really believes this,” said a senior source.

Last night senior diplomatic sources said that the capture of the Karine-A warship and the Iranian involvement, as well as the senior Hizbullah figure who was on board the ship, will aid in proving the triangular conspiracy between Iran, Hizbullah and the Palestinian Authority. “And in the same way that Iran and Hizbullah are declared enemies of Israel, so it will now also be with the Palestinian Authority.” Cabinet ministers, principally from the Right, have been putting great pressure in recent days to hasten the discussion and to make a sweeping and unequivocal decision against the Palestinian Authority, and principally against Arafat. As of last night, no date had yet been set for this discussion.

Senior diplomatic sources said yesterday that in recent days Israel has been devoting great efforts to have the US announce that Yasser Arafat is not relevant as far as it is concerned. In order to do this, a vast amount of material is being sent to Washington linking Arafat to terror acts and organizations. Meanwhile, senior security sources also disclosed to the Americans facts that had been hitherto unpublished: data, documents and information regarding the Karine-A ship.

The one to give the official go-ahead yesterday for the attack on the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat was Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz. Mofaz declared at the cabinet meeting: “The situation we have reached obligates a strategic response regarding Israel’s relationship to the Palestinian Authority and it is very important that the discussion take place as soon as possible.”

The chief-of-staff also referred to the conspiracy between the Palestinian Authority and Iran and Hizbullah: “Today there is a strategic connection between Iran, Hizbullah and the Palestinian Authority. It may be determined with absolute certainty that the Palestinian Authority has hooked up with all the terror organizations,” he said.

Other security sources also made similar comments and yesterday said that “the time has come to stop playing games. Arafat is an enemy and we must start treating him accordingly. After what we saw on board the weapons ship, it makes me shudder even to think what would happen if the Palestinians had a state.”

The consensus in the security establishment yesterday was nearly total regarding the “wider significance” of the capture of the Karine-A vessel, and the weapons discovered on board. “There is no more room for commentary,” a few sources stated. “All the strings lead to Arafat and the people closest to him, now that it is clear what they are really planning while they talk of peace.”

The sources said that there is clear cut and unequivocal proof of the fact that Arafat himself was in on the secret of the arms smuggling.

According to them, alongside intelligence evidence, it is also a matter of logic: “Arafat himself personally signs all of the pay vouchers of every last Tanzim branch, so how is it possible that he did not know about an expense of tens of millions of dollars for purchase of weapons and materiel?”

These are the weapons captured:

Ma’ariv (p. 3)