Palestinian Terrorists Claim WMDs

The al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade claimed today that it has developed as many as 20 different forms of biological and chemical weapons which it now intends to use against Israel:

In a leaflet distributed in the Gaza Strip, the group, which belongs to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, said the weapons were the result of an effort that has lasted for three years.

The group said its members would not hesitate to add the new weapons to long-range rockets that are being fired at Israeli communities almost every day. It also threatened to use the weapons against IDF soldiers if Israel carried out its threats to invade the Gaza Strip.

“We want to tell [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and [Defense Minister Amir] Peretz that your threats don’t frighten us,” the leaflet said. “We will surprise you with our new weapons the moment the first soldier sets his foot in the Gaza Strip.”

Is this claim true? My guess–and it’s only a guess–is that it is a bluff. I suspect that if the terrorists had really made this kind of progress on a WMD program, the IDF would know about it and would already have moved against it. Last night, the terrorists attacked an Israeli guard post and kidnapped a 19-year-old Israeli soldier. This is why the IDF is preparing to move into Gaza.

Did you know, by the way, that the Palestinians “fire long-range rockets at Israeli communities almost every day”? You would have to be an extremely assiduous reader of American newspapers to figure that out.

UPDATE: An Israeli expert agrees that al-Aksa claim is probably a bluff, noting that the terrorists made the same claim in 2003.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses