"The terrorist group Hamas recruited and trained a Palestinian-Canadian to carry out attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets in Canada and the United States, an Israeli embassy official said yesterday." So says the National Post, with thanks to LGF.
"In what is being described as a new direction for the radical Palestinian group, Hamas allegedly gave weapons and explosives training to the 23-year-old Canadian in an attempt to expand its war against Israel to North America.
"The embassy official said that Jamal Akkal of Windsor has confessed he was assigned to assassinate visiting Israeli dignitaries, booby-trap the cars of Jews and Israeli diplomats, and murder Jews whenever the opportunity arose.
"'He is a member of Hamas,' said Ofir Gendelman, second secretary at the Israeli embassy in Ottawa. 'Basically, he is part of a new cell that planned terrorist attacks in North America against Israeli and Jewish targets.
"'This is very, very dangerous, a novelty so to speak in terrorist activities done by Hamas,' the embassy spokesman added. 'Hamas has always, or most of the time, concentrated on Israel and the territories. In some cases they plan to execute terrorist attacks in Jordan, but this is the first time that we are getting information about terrorist attacks in North America by Hamas.'
However, "Jamil al-Qhateb, the lawyer representing Mr. Akkal, said the Canadian admits he was approached by Hamas to carry out attacks in North America but said he never agreed to do so, and that his confession was extracted under duress."
"You know how they take all this information. For 20 days they interrogated him without sleep. He was all the time sitting in the chair ... and what he has said, I think that [was] because he was tired or because he didn't sleep at all."
20 days without sleep. Mm-hmm.
What's more, LGF also links to a related story: Canadian "Senior Foreign Affairs officials will call the Israeli ambassador on the carpet next week to chide him over his 'inappropriate' comments about an alleged confession by a Canadian arrested in Israel. The ambassador, Hiam Divon, has said that Jamal Akkal, a Canadian citizen of Palestinian extraction, confessed to being recruited by Hamas to attack Jewish and Israeli targets in Canada. Foreign Affairs complained that he's pre-judged the case."
According to Akkal's lawyer: "He said he asked Mr. Akkal if he planned to conduct attacks in North America and he said he did not. He also said allegations that Mr. Akkal underwent Hamas military training were overblown. 'It's just eight bullets he was shooting, that's it, and they tell him it's military training.'" Why was he firing eight bullets?
Akkal, meanwhile, "admitted during his investigation that during his stay in the Gaza Strip ... he was drafted into the military wing of Hamas and had a series of military trainings that included the use of small arms and preparation of explosive devices," according to Gendelman. "The aim of this training was committing a series of terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish interests in North America. One of the plans was shooting at an Israeli VIP, a minister that would come to visit North America. He was supposed to tail that minister, get close to him and shoot him."
"Another scenario was booby-trapping cars of Israelis and Jews.... And he also wanted to kill a Jew wherever he meets him, like in the street if he would see an Orthodox Jew, he had orders to kill him on the spot."
This was perhaps inspired by the Qur'an's "Verse of the Sword": ". . . Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them . . . " (Sura 9:5).
Gendelman: "He admitted to all those. He said in the investigation that he was planning to do all those things. So we are not talking about allegations but about facts."