One Man's Terrorist, Another's Freedom Fighter

Posted: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 11:13 AM
Filed Under: Tel Aviv, Israel
By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent and Tel Aviv Bureau Chief

NABLUS, West Bank – It is hard for me to describe Ahmed Sanakreh as a terrorist, although I know it's true. Hard, because I got to know him and his family quite well, and when you understand people, it's hard to hate them: Twenty-year-old Ahmed, baby-faced with black hair sticking up in gelled spikes, and a passion for his Nokia 90 cell phone; and his elder brother, Alaa, the intense, hollow-cheeked leader of the Palestinian al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus. They are the hard core of the hard core.

Although Alaa was the leader, Ahmed was the one Israel most wanted dead. I often asked Alaa why his younger brother had so many bodyguards, and Alaa would only smile mysteriously. But one day he confirmed Israel's claims: that Ahmed blew up an Israeli officer, and was the bomb-maker behind other suicide bombers.

Alaa, Ahmed and their friend Nasser abu Aziz were my de facto guides to the Palestinian side of the second Intifada (uprising). They were terrorists to the Israelis, freedom fighters to their neighbors, and sources to me.

I quizzed them often about the latest developments. My NBC colleagues and I met them in their safe houses, hid with them in the alleys, sat in their home with their parents, and listened as their mother cried that she did not want her boys to die.

I wrote about my relationship with this band of gunmen in my book, "Breaking News," which comes out in New York on March 4. Now I'll have to update it.

Cat with nine lives
Ahmed was the cat with nine lives. He prowled the dusty alleys of the refugee camp by night and slept by day. Nine separate times the Israelis shot him. He had more than thirty bullet holes in his body. He was shot in the head, the jaw, the chest, the back, the stomach, both legs, both arms and one hand. Once he was left for dead, buried under tons of concrete rubble when the Israelis bulldozed the Palestinian headquarters in Nablus. After two days of digging, Alaa and Nasser found him, barely alive. Two fingers were shot off.

Once we were in his parent’s living room, sipping sweet tea, when Ahmed stumbled in, supported by his bodyguards, with four bullets in the stomach. Alaa had stolen him from the hospital minutes before Israelis soldiers raided the place, hunting Ahmed.


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