Last Friday, Sgt. 1st Class Ilay David Garfinkel, 21, who served in the Duvdevan special force, was killed by an Arab sharpshooter who also wounded six other soldiers near the settlement of Dolev in Binyamin (Assault Helicopter Called in as Multiple Israelis Wounded in Shootout with Terrorist in Samaria).
Now it turns out, according to a Kan11 News report, that the terrorist, Majhad Mansur, was trained in Jordan by American experts as part of the US support for the Palestinian Authority.
המחבל שירת בעבר במשמר הנשיאותי של אבו מאזן ואומן בירדן על ידי הצבא האמריקני. בלילה שלפני הפיגוע, הוא הקים 4 עמדות מבוצרות ונע ביניהן במשך הקרב – שנמשך 5 שעות | @carmeldangor עם פרטים חדשים על הקרב בבנימין#חדשותהשבת pic.twitter.com/UyBVeKuBcq
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) March 23, 2024
Majhad Mansur, who served in PA Chairman Mansour Abbas’s presidential guard, put his American training to use in a manner that first baffled the IDF.
According to Kan 11, Mansour left his village of Deir Ibzi outside Ramallah after midnight between Thursday and Friday, armed with an M1 Garand semiautomatic rifle with a scope that was supplied by the US government to the PA. He reached the area above Haparsa Junction, less than an hour’s drive away, and established four fortified positions – as his American sharpshooting instructors had taught him.
When a minibus with seven IDF soldiers entered his sights Friday morning he started shooting, hopping from one position to the next, in a firefight that continued for five hours.
According to the IDF, a drone that was sent to the area ran out of batteries and had to be pulled from the battlefield.
Only after five hours did an IDF helicopter eliminate the terrorist.
AMERICA TRAINING FUTURE TERRORISTS
According to Wiki, in 2007, the United States Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority (USSC) began training PA Security Forces including the Palestinian National Security Forces, and the Presidential Guard, to establish 10 highly trained PA battalions by the end of 2010. Since then, US security assistance to the PA has expanded and received high praise.
High praise indeed.
Heavy US investment in training PA security forces began only after the PA was thrown out of Gaza by Hamas in 2007. DynCorp Mobile Training Teams (MTT) trained the PA NSF battalions in Jordan starting in 2007. The training program was ended by President Donald Trump in 2018, as part of his suspension of US funding to the PA.
But wait, there’s more. On March 5, The Washinton Post reported the establishment and operation of a new US-funded training center outside Jericho, where the next generation of Palestinian Authority security forces are being trained and groomed in a collection of metal trailers.
President Joe Biden wrote in a November 2023 op-ed in the Washington Post: “As we strive for peace, Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority.”
However, it has been clear to both Israeli and American security observers that the PA is struggling to maintain law and order in the territory it already governs, much less impose law and order in Gaza.
Enter the best trainers on the planet, care of the Pentagon. The training director at the Jericho camp, a colonel, 45, born in Lebanon to a refugee family, returned to the PA after the signing of the Oslo Accords. He told the WP: “If I leave my job there will be chaos, no matter the challenges I face.”
Speaking of chaos, Israelis and Americans should draw their conclusions from the remarkably increased effectiveness of the US-trained terrorist Majhad Mansur who was able to outmaneuver a slew of IDF forces for five hours before he was shot from the air.
The US is investing in PA battalions to increase law and order, but it may also be upping the number of highly-trained Majhad Mansurs out there.
