Tel Aviv Bomber May Have Acted Unknowingly

The Palestinian who blew himself up in a Tel Aviv cafe Friday, also killing three Israeli women, may not have known he was on a suicide mission, an Israeli newspaper reported Wednesday.

The Yediot Aharonot newspaper said investigators were checking the possibility that militants planted explosives on 28-year-old Moussa Ghneimat and sent him to Tel Aviv without telling him why.

The newspaper said agents from Israel’s internal security agency were basing the theory on Ghneimat’s personal profile, which does not match that of past suicide bombers. Investigators believe that Ghneimat may have thought he was going to leave a bag of explosives somewhere and was not told it would explode in his possession.

Meanwhile, 14 years after suicide bombings killed 299 soldiers at U.S. and French military bases in Lebanon, Lebanese authorities took their first legal action--an investigation of two Shiite Muslim activists, Hassan Ezzedine and Ali Atwi, believed to have been senior officials of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah in the 1980s.

The move appeared aimed at assuaging U.S. anger that no suspects have been identified.

Both men are at large, and the order did not connect them to Hezbollah, apparently to avoid a confrontation with the group.

The two suicide-bombings occurred Oct. 23, 1983, killing 241 U.S. service personnel and 58 French paratroopers.