Islamic Group Vows Revenge For Slaying Of Its Leader

The Islamic Holy War movement warned today that it would retaliate against Israel to avenge the assassination of the group's leader, Fathi Shiqaqi, who was shot dead on Thursday in Malta.

In a leaflet distributed here today, the group confirmed Dr. Shiqaqi's death, blamed Israel for it and vowed to unleash new suicide attacks like the bombings that have killed dozens of Israelis during the last two years.

This ugly crime will make every Zionist, wherever he may be on the face of the earth, a target for our amazing blows and our bodies exploding in anger," the leaflet said. "We shall take revenge and set the ground on fire under the feet of the Zionist criminals."

Police officials in Malta called the killing "a professional job." They said Dr. Shiqaqi, who was 44 and a physician, had been shot outside a seaside hotel in the town of Sliema, about six miles from the capital, Valletta. Two men approached him on a motorcycle, fired five bullets into his head at point-blank range from a gun equipped with a silencer, and sped away, the officials said.

Dr. Shiqaqi had been on his way back to Damascus from Libya, where he had met with the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, apparently to urge him to stop expulsions of Palestinians from the country. He carried a Libyan passport bearing the name Ibrahim Shawesh.

The killing is widely believed here to have been the work of the Israeli overseas intelligence service, the Mossad, and Israeli leaders have said little to dispel the impression that their agents carried out the attack.

After news of Dr. Shiqaqi's death emerged on Saturday, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said he "would not feel sorry" about the killing of a man whose existence could not be tolerated by civilized societies.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said today that he had no knowledge of Israeli involvement in the attack, but he called Dr. Shiqaqi "an arch-murderer," and added, "Someone who deals in murder runs the risk of being murdered himself."

During decades of violent conflict with the Palestine Liberation Organization, assassins thought to have been sent by Israel killed Palestinian leaders in several countries. Most prominent among them was Yasir Arafat's military deputy, Khalil al-Wazir, known as Abu Jihad, who was shot dead in Tunis in 1988.

An Islamic Holy War leader, Hani Abed, was killed last year when his car blew up in Gaza. In an open attack in February 1992, the leader of the Iran-backed Party of God died along with his wife and son when Israeli helicopter gunships fired on his convoy in southern Lebanon.

Islamic Holy War -- which is substantially smaller than the militant Hamas organization and lacks its network of social services -- was molded by Dr. Shiqaqi into a group of several hundred members dedicated solely to armed conflict with Israel.

Among the suicide attacks it has carried out with Hamas were the bombing of a bus terminal near the Israeli town of Netanya that killed 21 soldiers in January, and the car-bombing of a bus in the Gaza Strip that killed 7 soldiers and an American college student in April.

As Dr. Shiqaqi's family received condolence calls in the town of Rafah at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, supporters of Islamic Holy War hung a boldly colored poster showing an Israeli bus exploding. Calls for "jihad," or holy war, boomed out over loudspeakers, and wall posters showed Dr. Shiqaqi's picture over a crossed rifle and knife.

At the Islamic University in Gaza, hundreds of students shouted calls for revenge and burned flags of Israel and the United States. "Down with the olive branch, take up arms!" they chanted, raising clenched fists.

Although some representatives of Mr. Arafat's mainstream Fatah movement joined these memorial gatherings, there was little broad public response to the killing beyond the demonstrations by Dr. Shiqaqi's followers, which in the West Bank town of Hebron took the form of stone-throwing clashes with soldiers.

Neither was there any indication that the killing would have an effect on talks under way between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas on a possible suspension of its attacks and participation by the group in planned Palestinian elections.

Islamic Holy War has not been involved in the talks, but its leaders said today that they expected the contacts to continue, and they were careful not to accuse Mr. Arafat of guilt by association with Israel, as they have in the past.

Mr. Arafat, in a speech to an economic conference in Amman, Jordan, called for "an end to terrorism and assassinations." Tayeb Abdel Rahim, secretary general of the Palestinian Authority, called on Islamic Holy War to show "restraint" and avoid violence that might halt the planned expansion of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank.

Islamic Holy War appointed a senior official of the group, Ramadan Abdallah, to replace Dr. Shiqaqi, who had lived in Damascus since Israel deported him from Gaza in 1988.

Dr. Shiqaqi was born in the Shati refugee camp near Gaza and studied medicine in Egypt. But he was sent back to the Gaza Strip after being jailed in a clampdown against Islamic militants after the assassination of President Anwar el-Sadat in 1981.

He formed Islamic Holy War in Gaza after his return, and was jailed by Israel in 1985, serving three years before being expelled to Lebanon.

Adnan Abu Hassana, editor of the Islamic Holy War newspaper in Gaza, Al Istiqlal, said today that although the assassination had dealt the group a painful blow, it would emerge strengthened.

"The assassination of leaders of Islamic movements only makes them stronger, more unified, and with higher morale," he said.