The United States has arrested and indicted four of the top worldwide leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and arrested the North American head of the same group, Attorney General Mr John Ashcroft said tonight.
Islamic Jihad, a militant Islamist group based in the Gaza Strip, has claimed responsibility for several anti-Israel suicide bombings.
Altogether eight people were indicted and of those four were arrested for their links to Islamic Jihad, which Washington has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
The indictment charges the eight as "material supporters of a foreign terrorist organization. They financed, extolled and assisted acts of terror," Mr Ashcroft said, describing Islamic Jihad as "one of the most violent terrorist organizations in the world."
"As the indictment details, the Palestinain Islamic Jihad is responsible for the murder of over 100 innocent people in Israel and the occupied terriroties, including at least two young Americans," he said.
Those indicted were Damascus-based Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah, Mohammed Tasir Hassan Al-Khatib, the group's treasurer, Abd Al Aziz Awda, one of the founders and the group's spiritual leader, and Bashir Nafi, another Palestinian Islamic Jihad founder and leader.
Mr Ashcroft said FBI agents had arrested four of the defendants who were located in the United States, including the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian.
Arrested with him were Palestinian Islamic Jihad members Sameeh Hammoudeh, Hatim Naji Fariz and Ghassan Zayed Ballut.
Searches also were underway in six locations in the Tampa, Florida area and one location in Illinois, he added.
The detailed, 50-count indictment charges the eight defendants with operating a racketeering enterprise from 1984 until the present that supported numerous violent terrorist activities associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Islamic Jihad and the Islamic radical movement Hamas have battled the Israeli army since the first Palestinian uprising began in December 1987.
AFP