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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scoobah who wrote (1190)	12/9/2001 12:51:47 PM
From: Scoobah	Respond to of 32591

Sunday, 9 December, 2001, 15:40 GMT Sharon warns of hasher attacks Four Palestinian policemen were shot dead Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has warned that Israel might step up its security operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, following another suicide attack in northern Israel, which injured 10 Israelis. "Our operations are yielding impressive results but we have not finished our action and in light of what is happening, we might have to step up our activities," Mr Sharon told Israeli radio. Ariel Sharon symbolically held the cabinet meeting in the West Bank The Israeli leader called his weekly cabinet meeting in Israel's military headquarters in the West Bank, where the ministers, who arrived in an armoured bus, were briefed by army commanders. His comments follow a major Israeli incursion into autonomous Palestinian territory to arrest militant activists, during which four Palestinian policemen where killed. Shortly afterwards a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated explosives at a crowded hitchhiking point in the port city of Haifa in northern Israel, injuring at least 10 people. The violence comes exactly a week after a series of devastating bomb attacks in Haifa and Jerusalem, which killed 26 people. Israel has responded in the last week with a furious military offensive, and both the US and Israel demanded that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat clamp down on militants. Israeli police believe the latest bombing did not cause as much damage because the bomber set off his explosives prematurely, after arousing the suspicion of officers who began to surround him. Police said the suicide bomber was left badly wounded after the blast. When they saw he was still moving and feared he might detonate more explosives, they shot him dead. Israeli raid Dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles, backed by two gunships, took part in the pre-dawn raid on the Palestinian villages of Anabta and Ramin in the West Bank to arrest suspected militants. The four Palestinian policemen shot dead by Israeli forces during the raids died in disputed circumstances. Anabta mayor Hamdallah Hamdallah said they had been shot "in cold blood". An Israeli army spokesman said troops killed the four Palestinians after they had opened fire from a car. Witnesses said Israeli forces detained 25 people and took over two floors of the Anabta village council building - one of which was used by police and the other by Mr Arafat's personal security organisation, Force 17. Explaining the action, a brief statement by the army spoke of "a terrorist network in the villages". Also on Sunday, a Palestinian taxi driver was shot and killed near Jenin as he was trying to enter the town, Palestinians said. Security talks In the meantime, Palestinian and Israeli security officials held a second round of security talks in three days, overseen by US envoy Anthony Zinni, at an undisclosed location in Tel Aviv. The previous session on Friday almost turned into a brawl, a Palestinian official said. Arafat's security clampdown has not convinced the Israelis "They were very difficult talks and the Israelis were trying to dictate and give us orders. There was almost a fist fight and we were shouting at each other," the official told the Reuters news agency. The Palestinian Authority has appealed to the United States to speak out against the current wave of Israeli attacks. But US Secretary of State Colin Powell has restated the American position that Mr Arafat is "capable of doing more" to "deal with" militants on his own side. "The burden is right now on Mr Arafat to do more to get the violence down to zero," Mr Powell said during a flight from Kazakhstan to Moscow on Sunday. Palestinians say that Israel's occupation in Gaza and the West Bank is an equally important cause of the violence and insist everything is being done to prevent terrorist attacks.