The bomb went off aboard bus No. 20 in the outskirts of Tel Aviv, killing six Israelis and the Arab-looking bomber himself. A short time later, as workers were still collecting the broken bodies, someone called Israeli Radio’s Arabic service and announced: “The cells of Yehya Ayyash . . . are responsible for the attack.” In fact, there was no proof that Ayyash had a hand in the bombing, or even that he was still living in Palestinian territory; rumors said he may have fled to Egypt or Libya. The myth may have outstripped the man, crediting him for every bombing and making him a symbol of extremist opposition.
Israeli security officials say they have information that Ayyash and a confederate made some of their bombs out of fertilizer and ingredients bought at a pharmacy, such as acetone and peroxide. But Ayyash allegedly used TNT for a bomb that destroyed a bus in Tel Aviv last October, killing 22 people. At the top of Israel’s most-wanted list, Ayyash has been on the run for more than two years. “He’s become a challenge for the Shin Bet,” says Ronni Shaked, a former agent of the Israeli security service and author of a book on Islamic militants. “Nobody wants to take him alive.”
Marzook was taken, quite tamely, when he returned to the United States after an absence of several months. U.S. and Israeli officials charged that he heads the political department of Hamas, in effect serving as its foreign minister and an overseas fund raiser. They claimed that he sat in on discussions about attacks in which Israelis were killed. “He is a known leader of a terrorist organization,” said Israeli government spokesman Uri Dromi. Marzook’s New York lawyer, Stanley Cohen, claimed his client was “a scapegoat” for last week’s bombing. He said Marzook was “a businessman, not a guerrilla leader” and broke no laws.
When Marzook and his family arrived in New York last week, his name popped out of a computerized “watch list” of suspected terrorists. A senior White House official said that the FBI had stepped up its counterterrorism activities and predicted that there would be a crackdown on other suspects attempting to enter the United States.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said he hoped to extradite Marzook, but other Israeli officials admitted that might be difficult, since it would require them to reveal sensitive intelligence information in open court. American officials were studying Marzook’s case to see if he could be prosecuted in the United States, but that might be equally tricky. Extraditing Marzook or trying him in the United States also could expose Americans to terrorist attack. Hamas warned last week that it would hold the Clinton administration “fully responsible for whatever harm may befall” Marzook, noting pointedly that so far the group has “confined its struggle” to the Mideast. In the end, Washington’s best option might also be the easiest one: to revoke Marzook’s green card and send him back where he came from on his latest trip–the United Arab Emirates.
