Israel Matzav

Eight years later no arrests in Gaza murder of American security contractors

Saturday marked eight years since the murders of Mark Parsons and two fellow security guards - John Branchizio and John Linde - by a roadside bomb in Gaza. There has been no progress in resolving the case.

Those facts are not in dispute. But aside from the certainty that a bomb exploded on Oct. 15, 2003, on a road leading from a checkpoint at the Israeli-Gaza border to a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, and that Parsons perished along with two other Americans, little else is known.

On that day, Mark Parsons was assigned as a security guard to a convoy of three armored SUVs from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.

Parsons was not a federal agent. He was employed a as a guard for DynCorp., a Virginia-based private security firm that had been hired by the State Department to provide security for embassy officials.

But why was he in Gaza?

Officially, the State Department says he was needed to guard U.S. officials who were on their way to interview Palestinian students who had applied for Fulbright teaching grants. The State Department has never disclosed the names of the U.S. officials who were conducting the interviews - not even their ranks. Nor has |the State Department ever explained why such heavy security was needed for what seemed like a low-key humanitarian and educational mission.

Yes, Gaza can be a volatile place - this columnist has reported from there. Gunfire can punctuate a colorful sunset and bombs can thump in the distance as children play soccer. But in 2003, Gaza was not enveloped in violence in the way it was several years later when Hamas came to power.

So why was Parsons' convoy targeted? And by whom?

...

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Washington-based Investigative Project on Terrorism show that the FBI and State Department officials tried to respond quickly. A team of seven FBI agents arrived a day after the bombing.

But Palestinian authorities had not secured the crime scene, the documents say. As the agents tried to collect evidence, they were pelted with rocks by Palestinian youths. Fearing they might be harmed, the agents quickly scooped up as much material as they could and left.

The Associated Press reported that the Palestinian crowd chanted "Allahu Akbar" - God is great - as the U.S. agents retreated to their cars surrounded by rifle-toting Palestinian police.

The FBI documents offer no clues about possible suspects. But investigators are quite sure of one critical element of the story: The bomb, containing 150 to 200 pounds of TNT, was set off by a remote control device. In other words, the bombers targeted the convoy.

The rumors here - both at the time and subsequently - pointed to Mohamed Dahlan, who was then an American favorite among the Fatah leadership, and his assistant, Rashid Abu Shabak.

Who murdered John Branchizio, Mark Parson, and John Marin Linde? This was written two months after the murders:

Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center Director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner has written to United States Attorney General John Ashcroft alerting him to the fact the Palestinian Security Service commander assigned to investigate the October bombing attack on American personnel in Gaza was very likely the terrorist who planned it.

Gaza Commander Col. Rashid Abu Shabak's has been entrusted by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation with hunting down the terrorist cell responsible for the October 15, 2003 bombing which left three Americans dead.

The three Americans, John Branchizio, 37, of Texas, John Linde Jr., 30, of Missouri, and Mark Parsons, 31, of New Jersey, were security personnel guarding a convoy of diplomatic vehicles which was attacked by Palestinian Arab terrorists who detonated a powerful roadside bomb at the Beit Hanoun junction in Gaza. The Americans were visiting Gaza to interview candidates for Fulbright scholarships.

Darshan-Leitner's letter accuses the Palestinian commander of being the mastermind behind numerous terror attacks perpetrated by Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization in Gaza. Shurat HaDin urges the Department of Justice to investigate Abu Shabak's involvement in prior roadside bombings.

Not surprisingly, there have been no arrests made by the Palestinians in the current investigation.

According to the Shurat HaDin letter, Abu Shabak, a protege of Palestinian leader Mohammed Dahlan, has an extensive terrorist past. Abu Shabak, along with Dahlan are the leading suspects in several other Gaza terror attacks.

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In her letter, Darshan-Leitner writes: "It is a disgraceful that the individual assigned by the Palestinian Authority to investigate the murders of Branchizio, Linde and Parsons is himself a leading terrorist suspected of numerous other roadside bombings in Gaza. If the United States is sincere about making arrests then it must not tolerate Rashid Abu Shabak heading up this crucial inquiry. The similarities between the October 15th roadside bombing and the roadside bombing of the Kfar Darom school bus in November 2000 cannot be ignored. We urge the Department of Justice to initiate its own investigation of Abu Shabak and his role in prior Gaza terror attacks, some of which have seriously injured American citizens."

So now that Condi Clueless is no longer Secretary of State and Mohamed Dahlan has had a falling out with Abu Mazen, maybe the murderers of Mark Parsons and his two colleagues can be brought to justice?

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Gaza, John Branchizio, John Linde, Mark Parsons, Mohamed Dahlan, Rashid Abu Shabak

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:49 AM