BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip — Gunmen smashed windows, burned buses and looted computers belonging to a private American school in Gaza on Saturday, an attack officials believed was linked to President Bush’s visit to the West Bank last week.
A previously unknown group claiming affiliation with al-Qaeda left leaflets around the school that were signed “Army of Believers, the al-Qaeda Branch on the Land of Palestine.”
The group didn’t specifically claim responsibility for the attack but vowed to target “dens of vice and corruption,” naming a number of restaurants in Gaza City.
There is no evidence that al-Qaeda has been operating in Gaza, but many Islamic extremists in the area have adopted the group’s language and style recently.
In other Gaza violence Saturday, a man carrying 9 pounds of TNT tried to attack a Hamas rally attended by the group’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh. And Israeli aircraft fired at a Hamas training camp in southern Gaza, killing two Hamas militants.
The attack on the American International School was the second in 48 hours. On Thursday, just before Bush arrived in the West Bank, gunmen fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the school.
On Saturday, gunmen locked the school’s unarmed guard in a room, burned six school buses, and smashed windows and computers, said principal Ribhi Salim. Other computers were stolen.
“This is terrorism against education,” Salim said while inspecting damage. He said that Islamic fundamentalists consider the school’s co-ed system and modern uniforms offensive.
Salim said the school would not close.
