Israel Probes for Al Qaeda Links

The result of the odyssey that brought the two suicide bombers to the beachfront bar in Tel Aviv was not unusual: They died. And so did three of their 58 victims.

But otherwise, the story of the attack six weeks ago breaks with the familiar narrative of suicide bombings in Israel. The bombers were not Palestinians from the dusty towns or seething refugee camps of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The duo were Britons of Pakistani descent, radicalized in the Islamic extremist milieu in Britain that has been a breeding ground for Al Qaeda. They became the first foreigners to commit a suicide attack here since the start of the intifada, or uprising, in 2000.

It’s not clear, however, precisely who gave the orders to blow up Mike’s Place, a hangout for English speakers, on April 30. The identity of the masterminds has become the subject of a politically charged dispute. Israeli officials said Monday that their security forces are “examining suspicions” that the attack teamed the militant group Hamas with Al Qaeda recruiters who groomed the bombers. Because Al Qaeda’s activity in Israel has been limited, such an alliance would be a worrisome development.

“It shows a very ominous trend,” said Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. “This is the first time that we have found evidence that Hamas was working to recruit suicide bombers through Al Qaeda.”

Israeli officials offered little proof. Hamas usually takes credit for its attacks, but has not made any claim on the Tel Aviv bombing. Hamas leaders Monday denied any link to Al Qaeda and accused Israel of trying to discredit them at a key moment in a military and diplomatic struggle with the Sharon government that is impeding Mideast peace talks.

“Of course the world today is fighting Al Qaeda,” said Ismail abu Shanab, a Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip. “And Al Qaeda has a different struggle from the Palestinian struggle. We are Palestinian people under occupation and we are resisting the occupation. And Israel wins if she makes links between the two issues.”

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Potential Collaboration

The region’s ferocious politics makes it a challenge to determine the truth. And it can be difficult to confirm involvement by Al Qaeda, a coalition of multiethnic networks.

For Israel, linking Hamas with Al Qaeda would weaken the Palestinian group politically. Ever since the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, Israel has depicted its fight in the context of the U.S.-led campaign against terror. In the Tel Aviv case, officials claim, Hamas’ military command in the Gaza Strip joined forces with members of Osama bin Laden’s network.

“The dispatching of foreign Muslims by Hamas to perpetrate attacks against Israel constitutes a dramatic and strategic turning point,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement. It accused Hamas “of ideologically toeing the line with global jihad organizations, led by Al Qaeda, which have declared total war on whomever is not a Muslim and even against those Muslims who cooperate with the West.”

Hamas, on the other hand, wants to preserve the image of a purely territorial struggle. Palestinian leaders, and some outside observers, say ideological differences with Palestinian groups have prevented Al Qaeda from establishing a firm presence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel’s security apparatus also helps shield it from infiltration by international terrorists.

Although Al Qaeda has attacked Jewish targets in countries such as Tunisia and Morocco, its only confirmed direct strike on Israelis occurred last November, when terrorists attacked Israeli tourists in Kenya.

Otherwise, Al Qaeda activity has been episodic in this region. A Hamas militant from the Gaza Strip convicted of terrorism here confessed to training at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. Richard Reid of Britain, the Al Qaeda “shoe bomber” convicted in U.S. federal court, conducted an apparent reconnaissance mission in Israel.

Israeli officials insist that Al Qaeda’s offensive converged with Hamas’ intelligence-gathering infrastructure and its need for operatives with European passports who can move more easily through Israeli army checkpoints. A loose and opportunistic partnership would be consistent with Al Qaeda’s style, according to Boaz Ganor, director of the Policy Institute for Counterterrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliyah.

“Al Qaeda relies on several layers of Islamic radical terror groups,” Ganor said, placing Hamas among those groups “that don’t get commands from Al Qaeda, but support it and would be ready to cooperate on an ad-hoc basis.”

Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, an extremist Syrian cleric based in London, disagreed. He said profound “sectarian differences” make cooperation between Hamas and Al Qaeda unlikely.

At the same time, Bakri has little doubt about the motivation and allegiances of one of the bombers, Omar Khan Sharif, 27, whom he had known since Sharif’s boyhood. Sharif became a star pupil in Bakri’s weekly classes on Islamic Sharia law.

“It was a surprise to hear Omar was in Palestine,” he said. “I think he was more inspired by Osama bin Laden than anyone else. Bin Laden’s word has become law, especially among the youth. Whatever he orders, they obey him.

“The beliefs of Omar were not the same as Hamas,” Bakri added. “I believe there are Al Qaeda units in Palestine functioning there. He most likely came across them and they helped him.”

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Middle-Class Britons

Sharif grew up in Derby, a small city in central England, in a well-to-do Pakistani immigrant family. He and his fellow bomber, 22-year-old Asif Mohammed Hanif of West London, made it to college before drifting into hard-core Islam and becoming representatives of a potentially ominous breed: middle-class, European-born suicide bombers.

Hanif was influenced by London-based clerics who are revered among Al Qaeda’s soldiers in Europe, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the case. Sharif became a fervent follower of Bakri, whose Al Muhajiroun group admires Bin Laden and calls for a global Islamic caliphate, yet claims to reject violence. Both young militants spent time studying Arabic in Syria, and Sharif also may have traveled to Afghanistan, Bakri said.

This spring, Sharif asked Bakri if he could embark on an intensive course of Islamic scholarship that would require him to spend a year working with Bakri as a kind of acolyte. Bakri told him he would have to wait. Five days later, Sharif disappeared.

Sharif and Hanif traveled to Jordan. They crossed into Israel by land April 12 and spent three weeks drifting among the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv boardwalk that was their target.

Hanif’s bomb detonated, but Sharif’s explosives-packed belt malfunctioned. He barely managed to escape an angry crowd in the bedlam after the explosion. Two weeks later, police found Sharif’s corpse floating off the coast, an apparent drowning victim.

The distance he went to die is a warning of new dangers ahead, officials say.

“It worries a lot of people,” a British counterterrorism official said. “If they can do what they did in Israel, why not do it elsewhere? We have crossed a bit of a line in a Briton becoming a suicide bomber.”