Last update - 00:00 30/10/2006
Tira woman indicted for planning terror attack in Ra'anana
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
An Israeli Arab was indicted on Sunday on charges of assisting terrorists in the attempted bombing of a Ra'anana restaurant.
The defendant, Warud Qasem, a 20-year-old Tira resident, was arrested on October 4 and the attack was thwarted, the security services said on Sunday at the Tel Aviv District Court, where she was arraigned.
Qasem was charged with joining the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's military wing, three months ago, and helping it plan a bombing in Ra'anana's Spagettim restaurant. The prosecution said Qasem maintained contacts with militants of the Brigades in Nablus and Tul Karm and agreed to their request that she smuggle an explosive device into Israel.
At the time the defendant worked in a Ra'anana supermarket, and the group had planned for her cousin, a Palestinian illegally residing in Israel, to place the device in the local branch of the Spaghettim chain.
Qasem, who had a car with Israeli license plates, drove an Al-Aqsa cell leader as far as Ramallah with a 5-kg explosive device, evading a security check, the charge sheet says.
However, she refused to drive the cell leader into Israel, claiming security for entering Israel was stricter.
At this stage Qassem asked her cousin, a Nablus resident who worked illegally in Spagettim, to smuggle the bomb into Israel.
The cell members made several abortive attempts to tranfer the explosive device into Israel, finally hiding it in al-Bira, in the West Bank, where IDF forces discovered it, the charges said.
Qasem's cousin and two other Al-Aqsa Martyrs' activists suspected of delivering the device to her have also been arrested.
Qasem is charged with aiding an enemy, maintaining contacts with a foreign agent, and membership in a terrorist organization. She is also charged with knowing of Fatah activists' plan to kidnap a settler in the Qalqiliyah area.