A balance of terror???

A profile of Islamic Jihad from the Washington Post...

The militant known as Abu Hamza is constantly on the run from Israel, and his hideout today is a dank room at the back of a nondescript house filled with adults and frolicking children.

The room is barren except for a computer hooked up to the Internet, which the Islamic Jihad commander said is used to plan rocket attacks on southern Israel. He pledged to keep up the violence despite the growing likelihood of a major Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"We must create a balance of terror with the enemy," he told The Associated Press in a rare interview.

Abu Hamza is a small, soft-spoken man with a wide smile, but the rockets that Islamic Jihad fires into Israel almost daily serve as constant reminders that renewed talk of Mideast peace remains a distant dream in the violence-torn Gaza Strip.

Israel's military says Gaza militants have fired some 980 rockets into Israel since June, when Hamas seized power in the coastal territory. That compares to 440 in the preceding four months. In all, thousands of crude rockets fired over the past seven years have killed 12 Israelis, wounded dozens and disrupted life for thousands.

Israeli troops and settlers withdrew from Gaza more than two years ago _ and Israel has begun a fledgling peace process with the moderate Palestinian forces now in control of the West Bank. So why is Islamic Jihad still raining missiles on Israeli towns, provoking fierce retaliation and a new Israeli threat to cut off Gaza's electricity?

This is the Palestinians' way of offsetting Israel's sophisticated military machine, Abu Hamza said. Israel's decision to seal Gaza's borders after Hamas militants took control is another reason the rockets are justified, he said.

"Our rockets go over those borders," he said.

Islamic Jihad, a virulently anti-Israel group backed by Iran and Syria, has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and is believed to have about 2,000 militants armed with M-16 and AK-47 automatic rifles, grenades and anti-tank weapons.