Hamas Has No Intention To Target U.S

"If they (Americans) are worried, then they are stupid because we have said it many times that we will target only our enemy, the (Israeli) occupiers," Abdel-Aziz Rantissi told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday, March 24.

Rantissi announced on Tuesday, March 23, that he had been elected to head Hamas in Gaza one day after Israeli forces assassinated the group’s spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

In a statement issued after Israel’s assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, its armed wing hinted that the United States could be targeted.

The U.S. government has warned all its nationals to leave the Gaza Strip and to defer travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

President George W. Bush, asked about Yassin’s killing, said Tuesday that "Israel has the right to defend herself from terror," although Washington has insisted that it had no advance warning of the air strike.

In the immediate aftermath of Sheikh Yassin’s assassination, Rantissi asserted that war is "open" with Israel.

The 56-year-old Rantissi survived an Israeli assassination attempt in June 2003, suffering leg, arm and chest wounds in a missile attack on his car in central Gaza City.