PLO Plot to Send Explosives for Attack on Israelis Charged
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NEWARK, N.J. — A Christmas bomb plot aimed at an Israeli settlement on the occupied West Bank has been uncovered by U.S. authorities, a court was told Thursday.
The plot involved the sale of explosives to a Palestine Liberation Organization official by an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen, according to evidence presented here.
Sultan Gawli of Jersey City, N.J., was ordered held without bail on charges that he arranged for the shipment of 150 pounds of plastic explosives to Said Hassan, described as the official PLO representative to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.
U.S. Attorney Thomas Greelish said the PLO planned to use the explosives in a Christmas-time attack on an Israeli settlement on the West Bank.
Hassan also asked Gawli for a remote-controlled detonator capable of setting off a charge at 500 yards so that PLO fighters could escape undetected.
Greelish said the plot was uncovered by an undercover agent posing as an arms dealer sympathetic to the PLO. The agent met Gawli at the travel agency he owns in Jersey City and showed him a sample of the plastic explosive, Greelish said.
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