Israeli police commandos foil election terror plot

ELITE police commandos chased down a group of Palestinians racing toward central Israel in a van packed with explosives yesterday, foiling a potentially devastating bombing just days before national elections.

The arrests capped a 15-minute chase by heavily armed police commandos on motorcycles. The hunt brought Israel’s main highway to a standstill for more than an hour.

Reflecting the jitters, Israel has banned Palestinians from entering the country until after the March 28 election and greatly restricted movement through the Gaza Strip’s main cargo crossing. With the closure causing shortages of milk, bread and other essentials in Gaza, Israel allowed the crossing to reopen temporarily yesterday.

A high alert was declared in the Jerusalem area after the Shin Bet security service received a tip that Palestinians in a blue van had infiltrated from the West Bank and were planning to carry out an attack in an Israeli city, police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.

The van eventually was spotted on the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. Police vehicles gave chase and caught up with the van about 15 minutes later. Commandos wielding automatic weapons participated in the chase, backed by a helicopter.

“We were travelling along the highway... and suddenly we saw a helicopter swoop down and anti-terror forces speed by,” witness Yonatan Danino told Israel Radio.

Police made the 10 passengers strip to their underwear and ordered them to lie face down in a field. Bomb experts searched the car and found a bag containing 15 pounds of explosives, Mr Rosenfeld said. That is a typical amount of explosives used by a suicide bomber.

Police said one of the suspects was from Islamic Jihad, which has carried out suicide bombings in the past year and has not observed an informal truce. The suspect is from the West Bank village of Yamoun, scene of a botched army raid over the weekend.

A successful attack could have had deep repercussions for the election. The centrist Kadima Party, which holds a wide lead in opinion polls, has been accused by its hawkish rivals of being too soft on the Palestinians.

Past elections have been affected by outbreaks in violence, and officials have feared militants might try to disrupt the vote.