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Sgt. Stryker pointed this story out, along with the comment that on TV we seem to see wailing Palestinians, while on Arab news sites....



Al-Ahram Weekly | Invasion | The 'engineer'



Omar sits restlessly on his chair in the safe-house. He is an "engineer" from Jenin refugee camp: one of the revered bomb-makers from the City of the Bombers. To the Israelis he is the most lethal, and wanted, of terrorists. The poison from the Cobra's head. ...



... Of his group of 30 gunmen, only four escaped from the camp [Jenin] on Wednesday, after the Palestinian arsenal ran dry. Most of the others were shot dead.



"Of all the fighters in the West Bank we were the best prepared," he says. "We started working on our plan: to trap the invading soldiers and blow them up from the moment the Israeli tanks pulled out of Jenin last month."



Omar and other "engineers" made hundreds of explosive devices and carefully chose their locations.



"We had more than 50 houses booby-trapped around the camp. We chose old and empty buildings and the houses of men who were wanted by Israel because we knew the soldiers would search for them," he said.
And babbling brooks continue to ask why the Israelis bulldozed so much of that camp, and UN, er, ah, gentlemen decry the lack of Israeli "search and rescue" operations. Gads, get a grip!

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