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http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2002001669,00.html
London Times
THURSDAY JANUARY 03 2002
Hamas 'has Saudi links'
FROM CHRISTOPHER WALKER IN JERUSALEM
ISRAEL disclosed yesterday, on the eve of a new US peace mission, that it
had arrested a Hamas activist who had been to Saudi Arabia to arrange
funding for a home-made missile industry for Palestinian terrorists.
The disclosure of Saudi involvement in the escalating Islamic campaign being
mounted against Israel has added a dimension to the war against terror for
which Israel claims justification in the same way as the US is fighting
backers of Osama bin Laden.
A spokesman for Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, said that detailed
documents found two weeks ago on the activist, named as Osama Karika, 27,
and recruited in the Gaza Strip last August by Nidal Farhat, a leading Hamas
guerrilla, had provided detailed information about the groupıs attempt to
build a short-range missile industry for use in the West Bank. He claimed
that the details had been passed to Yassir Arafatıs ³security mechanisms²,
but that no action had been taken against Mr Farhat so far.
Earlier, Mr Sharon told Jan Petersen, Norwayıs Foreign Minister: ³Arafat is
neither carrying out counter-terrorist operations nor making arrests.² The
same information will be passed to the US envoy, Anthony Zinni, who begins a
four-day mission today.
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