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Arafat says US, Arabs to retrain security forces
( 2002-08-10 15:37 ) (7 )

Yasser Arafat said on Friday after high-level talks between Palestinians and the United States that U.S., Egyptian and Jordanian officials would oversee reforms to Palestinian security services.

Security reforms and elections pledged by Arafat under international pressure are seen as crucial to reviving talks with Israel on a Palestinian state after 22 months of violence against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Three cabinet ministers, Secretary of State Colin Powell and White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice addressed Palestinian reforms in Washington on Thursday to help overcome the Middle East's bloody stalemate.

Arafat, in an interview with Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera on Friday, described the talks as "positive and constructive" and said it was agreed foreign experts would help overhaul the Palestinian security apparatus.

"There is an agreement that Americans, Egyptians and Jordanians will come and administer the training of our security branches," said the Palestinian president, speaking in his West Bank compound ringed by Israeli tanks.

U.S. officials have ostracized Arafat since President Bush called in June for a new Palestinian leadership but agreed to receive ministers associated with mooted reforms.

As Palestinian ministers met senior U.S. officials, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon branded the Arafat-led Palestinian Authority a "murderous gang." The Palestinians said Sharon's broadside was an attempt to sabotage their first high-level talks with Washington for months.

It was Arafat's first public acceptance of foreign involvement in reforming security organs that Israel regards as having failed to stop, and even abetted, an uprising led by Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Gaza.

Asked if the program would start in the near future, the 73-year-old former guerrilla leader said: "We hope so," but he gave no timetable for implementation.

Any hands-on foreign role in Palestinian reforms may be risky for Arafat as he faces challenges to his power from Islamic militants who have gained popularity by grabbing a central role in the uprising.

HAMAS SAYS TO TARGET ISRAELI LEADERS

Hamas, an Islamic group dedicated to Israel's destruction, dismissed as futile any Palestinian crackdown on militants.

"If the PA (Palestinian Authority) wants to confront the resistance it must confront the Palestinian people," Usama Hamdan, who heads Hamas in Lebanon, told Reuters in Beirut on Friday.

He said the group would target Israeli leaders to avenge Israel's tactic of tracking and killing major militants.

"From here on out, targeting a leader, minister, or the head of the government of the Zionists entity will be treatment in kind, particularly since they are giving the orders (to kill Palestinians)," Hamdan said.

Hamas has redoubled its suicide bombings and other attacks since an Israeli air strike killed its Gaza Strip commander and 14 other Palestinians last month. On Wednesday, an Israeli sniper killed a leading Hamas man in southern Gaza.

There was new violence on Friday as Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, witnesses said.

The army said soldiers opened fire after being shot at in Tulkarm, one of seven main West Bank cities under military closure and curfew since June, following a spate of suicide bombing attacks in Israel.

Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Qalqilya on Friday detained Ibrahim Abdul Dahmas, described by the army as a senior Hamas militant. The army said three other militants were seized.

INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE

Arafat has called elections for January under international pressure for reforms demanded as a condition for fresh peace talks by Israel, which took the West Bank and Gaza in a 1967 war but later granted Palestinians self-rule in the main towns.

Any popular perception that the Palestinian Authority is bending to the will of the United States, Israel's main ally but also the Middle East's main peace mediator, without bringing quick dividends in the direction of independence could boost Islamic radicals opposed to a negotiated peace with Israel.

Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states to have signed peace deals with Israel, have been frequent intermediaries in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At least 1,493 Palestinians and 585 Israelis have been killed since Palestinians rose up in September 2000 after peace talks on the terms of Palestinian independence hit an impasse.

In preparation for a possible Iraqi missile attack in the event of a U.S. assault on Baghdad, Israel has activated a new Arrow-2 anti-missile battery, Israeli security sources said.

Israeli officials believe the Arrow, developed in conjunction with the United States, can fend off attacks such as the Scud ground-to-ground missile barrages Israel suffered during the 1991 Gulf War.