Behind the Kidnapping of Journalists in Gaza

Rusty at the Jawa Report thinks that the kidnapping of two journalists, US citizen Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig of New Zeeland, who were working for Fox News, may have been done by a group spawned by the nihlistic tendencies of al Qaeda's master murderer, Zarqawi. Rusty wrote:

I have some bad news. I just learned that the Global Islamic Media Front--an al Qaeda propaganda outlet--has released documentation of the two Fox News hostages. The message and vid were the same ones you saw yesterday, with the addition of photo IDs--including Centanni's Congressioal press pass.

Centanni's pass may be why this group of thugs believes his hostage taking could actually exert leverage, and the speculations that it was his Fox affiliation are probably overblown (even though I have engaged in them from time to time myself).

With GIMFs involvement, it is now almost certain that an al Qaeda group is behind this--though they are probably of the 3.0 variety, which means they are not under the direct control of the leadership but are "fellow travellers". It also means that they look to Abu Musab al Zarqawi as their inspiration, since GIMF was founded as an offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq under Zarqawi's leadership.

I won't even mention what the Zarqawi link implies.

If this is the case--and these are words you may never hear repeated at The Jawa Report---then God help the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in finding them before it is too late.

Meanwhile, Time Magazine thinks that this might actually be a group seeking to embarrass Hamas and Fatah in a power play in Gaza and West Bank.

But Palestinian security sources tell TIME that the conditions presented Wednesday are little more than a stall tactic, and that the seizure of the two men has much more to do with internal Palestinian and Islamic militant politics than with striking a blow against Israel and the U.S.

The Palestinian security sources told TIME that Holy Jihad Brigades is made up of gunmen who belonged to one of the many armed groups that splintered apart from the late Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. Arafat's weak and distracted successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has failed to rein them in, and they now operate inside the West Bank territories and Gaza as lawless vigilantes. Some are still on the payroll of Gaza's Preventive Security Police, a fiefdom of the Fatah's bosses. Suspicion has fallen on three groups in particular — Al Nasser Salaheddin, Abu Reesh Brigade, Abu Rees Brigade, and a spin-off of al Qasa Brigades based in the Gaza town of Khan Younis, near where the TV crew was captured at gunpoint. These security sources say that most likely, the Holy Jihad Brigades was created for the sole purpose of carrying out this kidnapping.

Well, there is another ongoing hostage situation that merits inclusion in this discussion - that of Gilad Shalit, whose capture by Hamas terrorists more than a month ago sparked Israeli raids into Gaza and attacks against Hamas and Fatah strongholds, arrests and elimination of the terrorist leadership along with the detention of members of the Palestinian Parliment.

Is the motivation to discredit Abu Mazen (aka Abbas)? Well, he's done absolutely nothing to indicate that he's in control of anything more than his own room. Hamas does what it likes, and Fatah's military wing does as it pleases, along with Fatah's splinter groups like the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. No one is controlling Gaza except roving gangs of competing militias from Hamas and Fatah. Fatah and Hamas have been trying to figure out how to get along, but neither wants to concede any power to the other, and Hamas refuses to deal with Israel, which complicates matters further.

Thus, there's no one to talk to in Gaza that could intercede. That leaves the two journalists in a very precarious position.