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The Shin Bet security service has uncovered a suspected terrorist cell that was planning a series of attacks, including bombing a Modi’in synagogue and kidnapping American citizens in the West Bank, the agency revealed yesterday.

The 12 suspects, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, were arrested thanks to information obtained during the interrogation of PFLP member Ramzi Sharona last February. Some of the planned attacks were apparently aimed at freeing jailed PFLP leader Ahmed Sa’adat.

Sharona admitted that he had contacted PFLP operatives in Gaza who instructed him to form terror cells in the West Bank cities of Jenin, Hebron and Nablus, the Shin Bet said. His Gaza contacts allegedly asked Sharona carry out an attack at a synagogue inside Israel in order to “avenge the Jews’ activities at the Al-Aqsa compound,” a reference to the Temple Mount.

According to his interrogators, Sharona, who had formerly worked illegally as a laborer in Modi’in, said that he intended to plant an explosive device in a nearby synagogue, blow it up when it was empty of worshipers and then flee to Ramallah.

In addition, the Shin Bet said, he planned to kidnap U.S. civilians in order to swap them for Sa’adat, shoot motorists on a Modi’in road and assault Israel Defense Forces soldiers in Hebron.