Jerusalem Post

(16:45) BBC: Palestinian group says responsible for WTC attack By Miriam Shaviv

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine has claimed responsibility for the attacks on the World Trade Center, according to the BBC and Abu Dhabi television. However, DFLP sources have denied any involvement.

To read more about the group, click here.

It is unclear who is responsible for today's apparent terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York, but it is unlikely that Palestinian groups are involved, said an expert on international terrorism.

"They have a lot to lose because America would react very harshly against the Palestinians, however it is not impossible that a radical group was involved," said Eli Carmon, of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center's counter-terrorism department.

Two jets, one of them apparently an American Airlines 767 hijacked from Boston, crashed into the Twin Towers shortly before 9 am. EST.

Carmon noted that the World Trade Center has been targeted once before in 1993, when a bombing killed six people and injured more than 1,000. Carmon said that there have been threats by unidentified Islamic groups to target the World Trade Center again if Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, the militant Egyptian cleric, who is serving a life sentence in the US after his conviction in a plot to bomb the United Nations and New York landmarks, was not released.

He added that it is possible that terrorist mastermind Osama Bin-Laden is also involved.

Carmon said that the alleged terrorist attack amounts to a "declaration of war" on the US, and that the US will have to "react in an extremely harsh manner."

Israel, he noted, had already envisioned the possibility of an air attack, and shot down a small plane that took off from Lebanon in May after it flew menacingly into Israeli airspace.

-- Anonymous, September 11, 2001

Answers

Apparently there was much rejoicing in the West Bank today.

-- Anonymous, September 11, 2001