| ||
| ||
| ||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
U.S. offers $5 million reward in Gaza convoy attack
From Elise Labott
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. State Department is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of those involved in the attack of a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Gaza two weeks ago. The October 15 roadside bombing killed three security personnel working for the U.S. military contractor DynCorp as they guarded diplomats traveling into Gaza to interview Palestinians who were candidates for Fulbright Scholarship grants. Palestinian police have detained three suspects in connection with the attack. The reward is being offered through the State Department's Rewards for Justice program and was posted on its Web site. In addition to the $5 million, the offer said those providing information may be eligible for protection of their identities and relocation with their families. The Rewards for Justice program seeks to prevent acts of terrorism against the United States. It pays rewards for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of terrorists attempting to commit -- or committing -- acts against U.S. interests. This summer the program paid $30 million to an Iraqi informant who provided the tip leading U.S. troops to the home where Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay were hiding. This week, the State Department offered a $5 million award for information leading to the capture of Abu Musab al Zarqawi -- a Jordanian with ties to al Qaeda who is suspected of orchestrating the August bombing of the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. Zarqawi is being tried in absentia for last year's killing of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan. Foley, a senior administrative officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Jordan, was gunned down in front of his Amman house in October 2002. "We do decide from time to time to highlight a particular individual or sometimes to raise a reward amount for a particular individual if we think that can contribute at some stage in the investigation," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday. "In some cases, we felt that there must be people out there who know something; let's go out right away and remind people that this reward's available. In other cases, we've gone some period of time before they've decided to advertise." Boucher said that sometimes investigators think a case can be best solved with an appeal to the public but that at other times they don't want a suspect to know where a probe stands or how close they are on a suspect's trail. "It really depends on the specific circumstances of a particular investigation," he said. However, Boucher declined to comment on the status the convoy attack probe, saying Palestinians are in charge of the investigation.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
