Border Police on Saturday arrested two terrorists from Shechem at the Tapuach Junction in northern Samaria.

The two young Arab men, aged 17, were carrying four pipe bombs, a makeshift firearm, ammunition, and knives.

Suspicions of Border Police officers at the junction were aroused when the two young men exited their vehicle before it could be inspected. They were ordered to stop, leading them to attempt to flee.

Border Police captured them on the scene and called in police sappers to neutralize the pipe bombs.

In addition, IDF forces uncovered an improvised bomb near the city of Jenin, also in northern Samaria. That bomb, as well, was detonated by police sappers.

Northern Samaria has increasingly become a hotbed of terrorism in the past year.

In late January, the GSS and Israel Police foiled a shooting attack planned by an Israeli Arab in collaboration with an Islamic Jihad terror cell from Tulkarem in northern Samaria.

Last August, Islamic Jihad terrorists from Gaza were involved in the deadly cross-border ambush of an Israeli civilian bus that left 8 Israelis – 7 of them civilians – dead.

Islamic Jihad leaders in Gaza – whose terror cells are heavily involved in rocket attacks on Israel´s southern communities – have been targeted with airstrikes rather than arrest and detention.

Last September, the GSS cracked a Hamas terror network in Judea and Samaria which was in various stages of planning terror attacks. One of the cells uncovered was in Shechem.

The network was also behind the 23 March 2011 bombing of a Jerusalem bus stop that killed 1 and wounded scores of innocents. (IsraelNationalNews © 2012 04/21/12)