TERROR MINE KILLS THREE IDF SOLDIERS
IDF Was Protecting Civilian Convey Under Terrorist Attack

Photo: AP

Jerusalem----February 15........A powerful PA terror land mine exploded last night killing three IDF soldiers and wounding another soldier near the Netzarim junction.

The IDF Spokesman said that, before the mine explosion, a roadside bomb had been detonated and shots fired at a civilian convoy of cars and a bus between Netzarim and the Karni crossing linking the Gaza Strip and Israel.

When emergency vehicles and a tank arrived, the tank ran over a "very sophisticated anti-armor device," a military source said. The tank crew was driving along a dirt side road when the mine detonated. The turret was blown off, pinning one of the soldiers underneath the tank and setting it on fire, the spokesman said.

IDF soliders killed in the abush were: St. Sgt. Moshe Peled, 20, from Rehovoth and Sgt. Asher Zaguri, 21, from Shlomi.
One wounded soldier was taken to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba. IDF units sealed off the area and conducted searches.

Israeli security forces recently moved into Palestinian towns and searched for Arab terrorists for 24 hours in response to the firing of two Palestinian-built Qassam-2 rockets into Israel from Gaza on Sunday. A little more than a week ago, the IDF announced it had seized a shipment of eight Qassam-2 missiles as they were being smuggled by terrorists between two West Bank cities.

"We heard an explosion and saw a blue flash in the orchard area," the convoy bus driver, identified as Itzik, said. "We continued in the bus toward Karni, while the jeep behind stopped to open fire at the spot where it looked like the terrorists were."

Hamas and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah both claimed responsibility for the attack.

A statement by the Saladin Brigade, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees group, said the attack was in response to the Wednesday killing of five Palestinian policemen during an IDF raid in the Gaza Strip.

"In response to the killing of five soldiers of the national security forces and in response to the raid on our cities and villages... Saladin Brigade detonated two roadside bombs against a Zionist convoy... then sprayed the convoy with machine-gun fire," said the statement received by Reuters.

The United States Department of State has declared the Saladin Brigade as a terrorist organization.