'Covert Affairs' Season 4 premiere: Annie and Augie hunt a puma

By Laurel Brown"Covert Affairs" is back for Season 4, and this time it's back with a whole lot more romance than ever before. 

But is "Covert Affairs" back in a good way? The answer to that may depend on your perspective. Season 4 has some major changes -- the show is darker, and there is a whole lot of romance going on. 

For some people, the darker tone is definitely a positive. At this point, "Covert Affairs" barely resembles the bright and fluffy spy tale it was during its first couple of seasons. It's more like "24" than that now. 

And then there's the romance. If there's one thing that divides "Covert Affairs" fans, it's Annie and Auggie. They are very much together now, which can either be a good thing or a bad thing. Only time will tell which it really is. 

The tease 

Alas for happiness and simple plots, Season 4 begins with elevators and gunplay. Annie ( Piper Perabo) rides up in a dark building, about to face something terrible. Even though she tells Auggie ( Chris Gorham) she loves him, this is not a moment about love. 

The door opens and Annie points her gun at a man. He points two guns back at her. 

What??? 

Never mind 

We won't find out the answer for awhile -- this elevator moment is 10 weeks in the future. For now, "Covert Affairs" is all about the lovemaking and the Henry Wilcox-inspired plots. Wilcox has given Annie a file about some South American terrorist called "The Puma" whose existence is about to bring down Arthur Campbell and all associated with him. 

Auggie is somewhat skeptical about all this. But Annie doesn't care because she's Annie and she's on a mission now. 

At least she doesn't have to go to Colombia alone. This is the benefit of having a CIA boyfriend. 

Tracking the elusive puma 

Naturally, Annie and Auggie undertake their mission completely off the record, making it look like a romantic getaway. It's not. Not unless your idea of romance involves tracking bank records, getting shot and chasing down really hot terrorists. 

There's also a new guy in the mix -- Calder Michaels ( Hill Harper), a man who will somehow be a regular in Season 4. Also, he just happens to be the guy that we saw Annie shooting at from her 10-weeks-from-now elevator. Michaels turns out to be the CIA station chief in Colombia. 

He doesn't like spies showing up and not giving a reason. But at least Michaels buys the beer! 

Anyway, Annie tries to get some bank records, a move that gets a sleazy banker shot. Both of the spies would have met the same fate, except Michaels shows up just in time to shoot a bad guy. Their second attempt is kind of more successful -- this time they manage to track a courier with the money. 

Only to get Auggie shot right before men with guns kidnap them. 

At least the gunmen bring the spies directly to the Puma! He turns out to be a reasonably nice guy who is very, very hot and good at extracting bullets. 

Also, the Puma is Arthur Campbell's son. So there's that. 

Spies can miss obvious stuff 

Joan and Arthur may be master spies, but they sure do miss a lot of stuff that happens under their noses. Both initially think that Annie and Auggie have merely run off on a romantic tryst. Although Arthur does get other ideas when he hears that they went to Colombia ... 

Meanwhile, Joan totally doesn't pick up on the fact that Arthur is being super suspicious throughout the episode. And Arthur doesn't notice that his wife is pregnant and pointedly not telling him about it. 

At least we can blame this on both people being distracted. After all, Arthur's career is abruptly finished and Joan has a baby in her belly. Oh yeah, that's a big reason why Arthur is being suspicious -- he has to resign because of secrets about to come to light. That's maybe a good excuse for missing a few other secrets. 

This is the only good thing Arthur has going for him, most likely, what with the cheating allegations and the fact that his long-lost son is a terrorist. 

Israeli Raid Leaves 3 Dead in West Bank Refugee Area

JERUSALEM — Israeli forces killed three Palestinians and wounded at least seven others early Saturday when their attempt to arrest a person suspected of being a militant in the restive Jenin refugee camp erupted into a violent clash.

Outraged Palestinian leaders said the episode raised to 60 the number of Palestinians killed since the beginning of American-led peace talks last summer. They warned that what they described as a purposeful Israeli escalation in recent days threatened to scuttle the negotiations and spawn an explosion in the West Bank.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, condemned the Israeli raid and called on the Obama administration “to move quickly to prevent the collapse of everything.”

The fragile negotiations are at a crucial moment. Washington is pressing for an extension of the talks’ nine-month timetable, but a disagreement between Israeli and Palestinian leaders over the terms for a release of Palestinian prisoners scheduled for this week could cause a breakdown.

On Saturday, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the Israel Defense Forces told reporters that troops went to Jenin before dawn to arrest Hamza Abu El-Hijja, 22, whom he described as a “ticking time bomb” involved in past shootings of Israelis and “in the advanced stages of planning further attacks.” Colonel Lerner said Mr. Abu El-Hijja fired at the troops from inside a house in the refugee camp where he was holed up, and shot an Israeli attack dog.

Mr. Abu El-Hijja, the son of a prominent leader of the militant IslamicHamas Party who is an inmate in an Israeli prison, was killed as he tried to escape, and two members of the Israeli special forces team were wounded in a shootout, Colonel Lerner said.

The other two Palestinians who were killed were identified as Omar Abu Zaina, 27, a member of Islamic Jihad, and Zain Jabarin, 23, of the armed wing of Fatah, Mr. Abbas’s faction. Palestinian news media reported that they were unarmed, though Colonel Lerner said they had “weapons or explosive devices” and were “part of a contingency plan” to corner the Israeli troops.

Azmi Ballas, 67, the owner of the house where Mr. Abu El-Hijja had taken refuge, said he and a dozen family members awoke around 2 a.m. to the sounds of “bullets, shells and grenades.” They spent two hours huddled in their house until Israeli soldiers ordered them to leave, Mr. Ballas said, adding that one of his sons was shot in a shoulder and another was hit on the head with a rifle during the raid.

It was the most severe clash between Israel and Palestinians in months and highlighted both the growing tension between the two sides in the West Bank and the deep divisions within Palestinian politics.

Hamas issued a statement blaming not just Israel but also the Palestinian Authority, calling on it “to stop the comedy of the so-called security coordination with the Israeli occupation.” At the men’s funerals in Jenin on Saturday, according to Reuters, thousands of mourners crowded around the coffins draped with flags from their armed groups, protesting the talks with Israel with chants like “Where are you, Abbas? They killed us while you watched.”

Leaders of Fatah condemned Israel for not coordinating the raid with the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, because Jenin is supposedly under full Palestinian control. But Colonel Lerner and other Israeli officers said the Palestinians did not generally operate in refugee camps.

By JODI RUDOREN and FARES AKRAM

There is good coordination with the Palestinian security, but we understand that they don’t work for us,” a senior Israeli military official who works in the West Bank said in an interview last week, speaking on the condition of anonymity under army protocol. “We cannot order them what to do. They cannot be everywhere even if they wanted to — they don’t have the capability. And there are places where they don’t go.”

The Jenin camp, with about 16,000 residents, was the site of one of the fiercest battles of the second intifada, or uprising, with more than 50 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers killed over 10 days in April 2002. Mr. Abu El-Hijja’s father, Jamal, was arrested during the 2002 incursion, Palestinian officials said, and is serving nine life sentences for his role as a Hamas leader there.

Two Israeli arrest raids into the camp in August and September left three Palestinians dead. The camp is considered a Fatah stronghold, with a Hamas presence that Mr. Abu El-Hijja may have been trying to strengthen.

Colonel Lerner said Mr. Abu El-Hijja had been on Israel’s “wanted” list for months. Safa, a Gaza-based Palestinian news agency, reported Saturday that Israeli troops had tried to arrest Mr. Abu El-Hijja in December, but that he had escaped after a clash. Another Palestinian was killed in the standoff.

Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s defense minister, praised the forces that conducted the Jenin raid for their “determination and professionalism in a complex battlefield,” saying the operation “actually saved lives” by thwarting an attack.

Jodi Rudoren reported from Jerusalem, and Fares Akram from the Gaza Strip. Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.