[Ace Pace]

So thats where they are

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."

Sandwich, evacuation plans?

[Turambar]

you spelled "Al-Aqsa" wrong...

[Ace Pace]

you spelled "Al-Aqsa" wrong...

I can always spell it in hebrew. I'm not familier with english spelling of local terror groups and Jpost also called it Aksa.

[Shade]

And they think that makes Israel any less likely to go into Gaza? Not terribly smart are they? Not to mention that using it against Israeli troops in Gaza would kinda backfire, as they take out a couple of thousand civilians - their own civilians - at the same time. Didn't have much left over for them in the first place, and this certainly doesn't help.

Finally, they of course still have the problem of delivery. Just loading a jar of it onto a rocket won't accomplish much, as it still needs dispersal to do anything serious. Idiots. But then, that's not news.

[Sandwich]

Sh*t. That's seriously bad. If they use ANY sort of WMD against Israel, we'll likely obliterate the place. Which will in turn cause the nations to freak out, take extreme measures against Israel, and then Bob's yer uncle for WWIII.

That said, we're already back in Gaza looking for Gilad, so perhaps it's just an empty threat.

[Ace Pace]

And they think that makes Israel any less likely to go into Gaza? Not terribly smart are they? Not to mention that using it against Israeli troops in Gaza would kinda backfire, as they take out a couple of thousand civilians - their own civilians - at the same time. Didn't have much left over for them in the first place, and this certainly doesn't help.

Finally, they of course still have the problem of delivery. Just loading them onto a rocked won't accomplish much, as they still need dispersal to do anything serious. Idiots.

They can just pop it where they always pop it,inside cities.
They can hit nearly every Israeli major city easily and asumming they have the most basic bio weapons(Anthrax is fairly easily to use), they got a potent killer that won't spread that much.

EDIT: Sandwich, asumming WMD alert, where are you staying? 

[Shade]

If they really do succeed with an effective strike against you, I doubt many nations would raise an eyebrow if you glazed the place. I wouldn't.

[Edit] Yes they could, but unless they come up with something better than your regular explosive to disperse it, just wrapping a few bags filled with nails around the explosive would probably cause more casualties.

[Sandwich]

I'm staying at home, bro - I live in the neighborhood of Gilo, with the Arab-Israeli cities, villages, and neighborhoods of Bethlehem and Beit Jala on one side and Beit Tsafafa on the other. Tossing a WMD anywhere in Jerusalem would be stupid.

...oh crap.

[Ace Pace]

I'm staying at home, bro - I live in the neighborhood of Gilo, with the Arab-Israeli cities, villages, and neighborhoods of Bethlehem and Beit Jala on one side and Beit Tsafafa on the other. Tossing a WMD anywhere in Jerusalem would be stupid.

...oh crap.

Could be worse. I'm 5 minutes from the Goverment area and in the dense part of the city.

 

[aldo_14]

Bloody hell.  If they have anything effectively weaponized (i.e. not the ricin-type pish), then this is rather geopolitically apocalyptic stuff indeed.

[vyper]

Sounds like a bluff to me.

[aldo_14]

Sounds like a bluff to me.

I'd expect - and hope - so.

[Ace Pace]

And Hamas shows why it is clearly the worst possible goverment for the Pals

Hamas militants attack Israeli military outpost
By Dion Nissenbaum
Knight Ridder Newspapers

JERUSALEM - For the first time since its leaders took control of the Palestinian government in March, Hamas militants led a sophisticated pre-dawn attack Sunday on an Israeli military outpost along the Gaza border, killing two soldiers and abducting a third.

The raid created the most serious crisis here since Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip last summer.

Israeli tanks almost immediately moved into the fringes of the Gaza Strip, talks between rival Palestinian factions over ending attacks inside Israel fell apart, and Egyptian diplomats worked feverishly to prevent the situation from spinning out of control.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his military leaders warned the Palestinian government that it would be held responsible for the safety of the kidnapped soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19.

"We intend to respond to what happened this morning in such a way that everyone involved will know the price they will pay will be painful, and if the situation does not change, will hurt sevenfold," said Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz.

It was unclear whether the attack could have taken place without the knowledge of top-level Hamas leaders. Nor was it clear how long the operation had been planned. In taking credit for the attack, militants called it retaliation for several recent Israeli raids, but the Palestinians attacked the Israeli outpost through a 700-yard tunnel that Capt. Noa Meir of the Israel Defense Forces said would have taken months to dig.

The new Hamas-led government urged militants holding Shalit to keep him safe, but stopped short of calling for his release. Israel's Cabinet met late Sunday night to weigh its options and reportedly cleared the way for a possible rescue attempt before staging a wider military assault.

But efforts to free Shalit could be tempered by painful memories of past efforts to rescue kidnapped Israelis. In 1994, another 19-year-old soldier, Israeli-American Nachson Waxman, was kidnapped by Hamas militants and killed five days later during a failed Israeli rescue mission.

Sunday's attack came as Hamas leaders were working out the final details of an agreement with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to halt attacks inside Israel.

Abbas, who leads the more moderate Fatah party, joined Israel in criticizing Hamas for staging the raid just as the two sides were finalizing a deal that would have barred such attacks.

Sunday's attack took place before dawn at an Israeli army outpost near the Kerem Shalom kibbutz, which lies just inside Israel at Gaza's southern end. The kibbutz is about four miles southeast of Rafah and about two miles northeast of the Egyptian border.

Using a tunnel more than a third of a mile long, three teams of Palestinian commandoes surprised soldiers at the outpost with mortars, machine guns and hand grenades.

The tunnel, which began under a Palestinian home 400 yards inside the Gaza Strip, stretched 300 yards into Israel.

At least two of the Palestinian militants were wearing Israeli military uniforms during the assault.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and four others wounded, the Israeli military said.

Two Palestinians were also killed, but five or six others managed to escape back into the Gaza Strip with Shalit, who was seen walking with his captors, the Israeli military said.

The raid - dubbed "Operation Fading Illusion" by the attackers - marked the first time since Hamas took over the Palestinian government that its militant wing has launched such an assault inside Israel. Until this month, Hamas had largely stood by a 16-month cease-fire with Israel as smaller militant groups launched suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis.

But Hamas called off its cease-fire in early June after a series of inflammatory deaths. First, Israel assassinated a top Hamas security official and leading Gaza Strip militant, Jamal Abu Samhadana, in an aerial missile strike. The following day, eight Palestinian civilians out for a day at the beach were killed in an explosion during an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip coast.

An Israeli military investigation declared that none of its shells hit the Palestinians that afternoon, but the findings are in dispute, and Hamas immediately resumed launching rudimentary rockets into southern Israel.

The Hamas military wing joined Samhadana's Popular Resistance Committees and a new group called the Islamic Army in taking credit for the attack, calling it a response to the recent Israeli attacks, including three botched missile strikes that killed 13 Palestinian civilians in the past two weeks.

"The operation is a natural response to the occupation crimes and massacres against the Palestinian people," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. "Hamas will continue to resist as long as there is occupation."

Sunday's kidnapping was the first since 2000, when three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and killed by Hezbollah forces on Israel's border with Lebanon. Their bodies were returned to Israel four years later as part of a prisoner exchange.

Knight Ridder Newspapers special correspondent Cliff Churgin contributed to this report from Jerusalem.

So really, who's inflaming **** now?  :evil:

[Shade]

This may sound odd, but I think Hamas taking power might turn out to be the best thing that's ever happened for the peace process there. Simply because anytime something goes wrong now, it's now their fault, and they can't turn around and blame the more moderate Fatah people for it. Give it a year and, as long as Israel doesn't go completely nuts in Gaza and the west bank, Hamas will have zero credibility left with 99% of the palestinian population.

They're already getting rather desperate and have repeatedly looked like fools and imbeciles to their own supporters, and it will only get worse for them as long as Israel keeps its distance - and its cool - enough that Hamas can't effectively put the blame on them.

[Ace Pace]

HAMAS has been planning this raid since they took power--the tunnel was 700 meters long and would have taken months to dig--and it shows a high degree of sophistication on their part, though of course it was a failure even in tactical terms since it was driven off with such minor losses.
   
   That said, the truly ominous part here is that they must have been planning over an equal length of time to make this threat about bio-weapons, since they issued it so quickly after this raid and the massing in preparation for a rescue mission, that they showed it wasn't some random thing, but planned. That adds some authority to it.
   
   Furthermore, the fact that HAMAS initiated the raid and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades issued the threat strongly suggests that the "Palestinian Civil War" is just a sham and that both sides remain for all intents and purposes united in their military wings in the goal of the destruction of Israel.

You know, I rather liked having a non hypocritical Palestinian goverment that just admitted it wanted us dead.

[Ace]

There is of course that niggling fact that the militant wing and political wing are effectively two different organizations with the same name...

[SadisticSid]

Sounds like a bluff to me.

Me too, though it's not inconceivable that they'd have at least something fairly basic like Sarin. The '20 types of weapon' thing seems unlikely, as well. If they have one effective device, they'd probably move to mass produce it rather than look at other things.

[Turambar]

Using a tunnel more than a third of a mile long, three teams of Palestinian commandoes surprised soldiers at the outpost with mortars, machine guns and hand grenades.

The tunnel, which began under a Palestinian home 400 yards inside the Gaza Strip, stretched 300 yards into Israel.

At least two of the Palestinian militants were wearing Israeli military uniforms during the assault.

that actually sounds like a pretty well planned and coordinated assault.  big contrast from what you usually see on the news here, which involves exploding ppl and/or random skirmishes (or throwing rocks)


edit: of course the conspiracy theorist in me says that the israelis were behind the attack, using it to destabilize the fatah-hamas talks, and giving them a reason to invade the gaza(again).  but i'll admit its somewhat of a stretch

[Tyrian]

I'm betting that the threat from Al-Aqsa is a bluff.  (At least I hope it is.)  But if it is real, and they do have some sort of WMD, I'd stake that is was something biological.  That stuff can be reproduced fairly quickly, if they aren't too concerned with safety.  But to use it in a city, with an explosive dispersal system, wouldn't do too much.  It just wouldn't spread far enough.  If they were smart (Let's hope they're not), they would render it an aresol and load it in a rocket.  Shoot it over a city, and the wind spreads it as it sinks.  Even if it didn't kill a large number of people, it would have a huge terror factor.  It would definitely provoke a massive retaliation against the group and any nation which harbors them.  If the US gets involved, (god forbid) it might be the nuclear option.  Depending on which nation harbors the group, we could be looking at WW III, with the widespread deployment of tactical nuclear devices.  And if the US has what I think it does sitting in its arsenal, everything could go south really fast. 

The only saving grace is that this is an extreme worst-case scenario.

[IceFire]

What do you think they have?  The oft rumored Neutron bomb?