Radicals On The Rise

The militant Islamic group Hamas enjoys a boost in popularity as it goes about its business of slaughtering Israelis

You'd think it would be easy to put a frail, 65-year-old quadriplegic under house arrest. But it's never been harder to quell the activists of Hamas. When armed police from Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority moved in to surround the Gaza City home of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, founder and spiritual leader of the movement whose name means zeal, calls rang from the loudspeakers of local mosques, "Go and rescue Sheik Yassin!" The security men were greeted with a hail of stones and occasional gunfire from several thousand defiant Hamas loyalists determined to show Arafat, just like Israel, how much they have become...

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