Fox News interviewed Rafat Moussa Turkouman (pictured), a 20-year-old would-be suicide bomber and a possible “ticking bomb” recruited by Islamic Jihad. Because of some fascinating circumstances, accompanying Turkouman at the interview—conducted in a Jenin graveyard—were gunmen from the Al-Aqsa Brigade trying to thwart his plans. The resulting interview probably wasn’t what reporter Jennifer Griffin expected.
Griffin explains:
Members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — about a dozen of whom accompanied Turkouman to the interview and have been watching him closely — stopped the youth from committing an attack and took away his bomb belt, which had been given to him by the Islamic Jihad.
The brigade doesn’t want him to do anything to disrupt the fragile 3-month-old truce with Israel negotiated by their President Mahmoud Abbas….
Turkouman didn’t seem able to think for himself. He barely understood FOX’s questions, even in his native Arabic, and the brigade commanders told him what to say. He appeared extremely vulnerable to peer pressure….
When they caught wind of Turkouman’s plans to blow himself up on a bus, they thwarted the scheme and took away the explosives. Since they didn’t have anyone to turn him over to, they decided to simply keep an eye on him so that he wouldn’t continue with his mission.
But what is particularly troubling is that Turkouman says he hasn’t abandoned his plan of conducting a homicide bombing if he gets the chance.
“If the ceasefire collapses, I will go for it again,” he told FOX News, laughing.
Click to watch the video.
