debkafile Exclusive: Olmert government permits rejectionist DFLP delegates to travel to Damascus for the first time in 20 years

Israel’s military and security heads are seething. Members of Naif Hawatme’s Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) are reported by debkafile‘s counter-terror sources as having left on Feb. 25 to attend a meeting of the group’s politburo in the Syrian capital. The Gaza contingent passed through Rafah to catch a flight from Cairo, while the West Bank delegates crossed through the Allenby Bridge terminal to Amman.
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz were said to be guided by the fact that the extremist terrorist DFLP disapproves of Hamas rule and will actively oppose the future Ismail Haniya government.
Critics of Israeli government lenience towards the DFLP disclose that no demand was made of the organization to renounce terrorism; nor would it have been accepted. Its members take part in the Qassam missile offensive from the Gaza Strip and the planning of suicide attacks against Israelis. The reunion of all its branches in Damascus for the first time in two decades will give them the chance to plan additional and more sophisticated violence against Israeli targets.
debkafile adds: the 12-man delegation was headed by Qais Abdel Karim Samarai (Omar Abu Laeila) from Ramallah – an Iraqi whose family hails from Samarra; Taysir Khaled from Nablus; Hisham Abu Ghosh from Hebron; Omar Assam – also from Ramallah, who is the DFLP’s West Bank commander of terrorist operations; and Salah Zeidan, chief of Popular Resistance in Gaza and front man in the Qassam campaign.