Israeli official names Hamas leader abroad as suspect behind kidnappings (living in Turkey)

A Hamas leader currently living in Turkey is believed to be behind the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank last week, an Israeli security official said Thursday.

According to the unnamed official, Saleh al-Arouri — a former West Bank resident deported from the region after serving a prison sentence in Israel for several years, who is now a leading figure in Hamas overseas operations — is thought to have been a key figure for years in attempts to initiate terror attacks in the West Bank, funding and arranging the training of terror cells.

The official claimed al-Arouri, who used to live in a village north of Ramallah, has urged West Bank operatives incessantly to set up terror cells and perpetrate kidnappings. Al-Arouri has financially sponsored these cells, which were trained and directed to abduct Israelis. Often that money was transferred through charities to obfuscate their real destination, the would-be kidnappers, the official said.

The official conceded that Israel had no “smoking gun” proving al-Arouri’s involvement in the kidnapping last Thursday night of Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Frankel, “but I have no doubt that al-Arouri was connected to the act.” There is an increasing belief in the Israeli security services that the kidnapping was directed by Hamas’s overseas hierarchy, he noted, adding that al-Arouri is answerable to Hamas’s political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/security-official-hamas-leader-abroad-likely-behind-abduction/