DAMASCUS, 27 September 2004 — A car bomb killed a top Hamas operative in Damascus yesterday after weeks of Israeli warnings that members of the group would not be safe in Syria, and Israeli security officials acknowledged in Jerusalem that the Jewish state was involved.
Police at the scene of Al-Zahraa district explosion were seen retrieving pieces of the body of Ezzeddine Sobhi Sheikh Khalil, whose car exploded outside his home at 10:45 a.m. when he was trying to start it.
Witnesses, however, said Khalil, who had been speaking on his mobile phone, started the car and had just begun moving in the white Mitsubishi when it exploded some 10 meters from his home.
In Israel, the government issued no statement, but security officials acknowledged Israeli involvement in Khalil’s assassination.
Yesterday’s killing was the first by Israel of a Hamas member on Syrian soil, though it unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Khaled Mashaal in Jordan in 1997.
A Hamas statement published on the group’s website suggested it may take its fight against Israel outside the Palestinian territories in retaliation for Khalil’s killing. Israel “has opened a new door for the struggle by transferring the battle outside the land of Palestine,” it said, adding that Israel must bear the consequences.
Ahmad Haj Ali, an adviser to the Syrian information minister, described the assassination as a “terrorist and cowardly action.”
“This is not the first warning” Israel has tried to convey to Syria, Haj Ali said. “What happened indicates that Israel’s aggression has no limits.”
