Palestinian Jihad Gaza has camera-fitted suicide vests as in Iraq
debkafile's military and counter-terror sources confirm the WikiLeaks revelation that Iran developed camera-equipped suicide vests for al Qaeda's attacks on US troops under the instruction of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Center in Tehran. Our sources have discovered that the Islamic Jihad's "Jerusalem Brigades" in the Gaza Strip have been equipped with those same SVIED (Suicide Vest Improvised Explosive Devices) and have transferred some to al Qaeda cells at large in the territory.
This sophisticated suicide vest is fitted with miniature cameras which enable the bomber to monitor and relay images of an attack before he reaches his target, our military sources report. The bomber can thus stay in close touch with, and receive instructions, from his handlers every step of the way and also obtain images of the environment he is entering and the obstacles ahead.
An Israeli officer told debkafile that these mini-cameras "make it almost impossible for a suicide bomber to miss his aim. It makes him a human guided missile."
The presence of these SVIEDs in Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda hands in the Gaza Strip was recently brought to light by the Palestinian Hamas's intelligence agents as part of their report on the deepening collaboration between the Iranian proxy Islamic Jihad and local Salafi groups which have pledged loyalty to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and are a thorn in the sides of the Hamas rulers.
Jihad commanders are training the al Qaeda squads in the use of the novel suicide weapon of exactly the same type as Iran gave al Qaeda in Iraq and are joining them for missions against Israeli targets across the Gaza border. Thus far, Israeli troops have managed to thwart their attempts at encroachment, wiping them out as they crossed the border fence. Most of these incidents are not brought to the public's knowledge.
Hamas has meanwhile cautioned the Jerusalem Brigades to stop cooperating with al Qaeda in the Gaza Strip or else their training facilities and weapons caches will be destroyed, including their rockets, mortars and suicide belts.
However, the Islamic Jihad, which is not about to succumb to Hamas's dictates and disobey its masters in Tehran, sent back a two-part reply:
1. Any members carrying out attacks on Israel by firing rockets, planting bombs or using explosive vests without explicit instructions from their commanders will be expelled from the Islamic Jihad and ostracized.
2. Jihad leaders are ready for dialogue with Hamas, provided that its fighters are attached to the Hamas special force known to the IDF as the "Hamas Covert Unit," which was recently established to keep random missile fire against Israel in check.
Jihad did not refer to Hamas' primary demand, to terminate its operational collaboration with al Qaeda cells which challenge Hamas authority.
In Iraq, Al Qaeda is described in the ground-level view of the war offered in WikiLeaks 391,831 classified documents covering six years from early 2004 until Jan. 1, 2010 as "the strongest organization among the insurgent groups."