PALESTINIAN ASSASSINATION-O-RAMA

Bomb Wounds Palestinian Intelligence Chief. (A.P.)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The Palestinian intelligence chief, Tareq Abu Rajab, an ally of "moderate" President Mahmoud Abbas, was seriously wounded by a bomb packed with metal pellets at his headquarters Saturday in what security officials called an assassination attempt. There was no claim of responsibility, but the explosion in an elevator shaft of the heavily guarded compound in Gaza City came at a time of growing friction between Abbas and the Hamas-led government over control of the security forces. ...

Abu Rajab underwent surgery at nearby Shifa Hospital in Gaza, where doctors stopped the bleeding and stabilized him before transferring him to Israel’s Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. With his head bandaged and in a neck brace, he was taken in a heavily guarded Palestinian ambulance to the Israel-Gaza border crossing. Lying on a bloody sheet, he was rolled on a gurney from the Palestinian ambulance to the waiting Israeli vehicle. Israeli medical personnel immediately treated Abu Rajab before putting him in the ambulance and taking him to Ichilov.

Al-Qaeda in Palestine' claims attack on intelligence chief 

PARIS (AFP) - A group calling itself Al-Qaeda in Palestine said it carried out a bombing against the Palestinian intelligence chief and threatened more attacks in a statement posted on the Internet. “We declare our full responsibility for this operation,” the group said in the statement, whose authenticity could not be independently verified. “Your mujahedeen brothers managed to place a bomb in the special lift used by the apostate Tareq Abu Rajab ... but were hasty in detonating the device which should have been triggered once the lift door was closed.” Abu Rajab, overall head of the Palestinian intelligence services, was seriously wounded and his bodyguard killed in Saturday’s blast in a lift at the services’ Gaza headquarters.

Palestinians Foil 2nd Assassination Effort. 

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Palestinian security foiled the second attempt in two days to kill top commanders loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas in what officials in his Fatah party said Sunday was a “clear conspiracy” against their leaders. Fatah officials stopped short of openly accusing the rival Hamas militant group, which controls the Palestinian government. But the latest bout of Palestinian infighting, mainly over control of the security forces, has raised fears of civil war. Gaza security chief Rashid Abu Shbak, a central figure in the power struggle, was the target of an attempted bombing Sunday, security officials said. Security forces found and destroyed a 154-pound roadside bomb along a route used by Shbak’s motorcade. The road is inspected each morning before Shbak heads to work. The discovery came a day after Abbas’ intelligence chief, Tareq Abu Rajab, was seriously wounded and one of his bodyguards was killed when a bomb loaded with metal pellets ripped through an elevator shaft in his Gaza headquarters.