WASHINGTON, Aug 21: Alarmed by the severe deterioration of conditions in the Middle East, the United States on Thursday mounted a furious campaign to pressure Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat into ending attacks on Israel.

But barred from direct contact with Arafat since President George Bush declared him persona non grata last June, Washington had to resort to public calls and surrogates to demand that full control of the Palestinian security apparatus be turned over to prime minister Mahmud Abbas.

Led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, US officials warned that the roadmap was nearing a precipice that both sides might plunge over unless the security situation was calmed.

“I call on Chairman Arafat to work with prime minister Abbas and to make available to prime minister Abbas those security elements that are under his control so that they can allow progress to be made on the roadmap, end terror, end this violence that just results in the further repetition of the cycle that we’ve seen so often,” Powell said.

“It has to end,” he said. “The Palestinian people, the Israeli people, deserve better and those who are determined to blow up the roadmap must not be allowed to succeed.”

“The end of the road map is a cliff that both sides will fall off,” Powell told reporters at the United Nations after meeting UN chief Kofi Annan.

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher acknowledged the situation had turned dire with Tuesday’s suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus and Israel’s retaliatory killing of a Palestinian militant on Thursday.

He described Powell’s surprise decision to dispatch US envoy John Wolf, the leader of a team monitoring the roadmap’s progress, to the Middle East as “important” and “urgent.”

Mr Boucher said Mr Powell, Mr Wolf and other US diplomats were pushing Arafat to give Abbas more power through concentric rings of officials, countries and leaders that they believed had influence on the Palestinian leader.

“People need to get the message to Arafat to allow prime minister Abbas to move forward on these steps, that he needs to cooperate, needs to stop blocking steps that need to be taken,” he said.

The first and innermost ring consists of Arafat’s associates, including Abbas with whom Powell spoke on Wednesday, and senior aides to whom Wolf is speaking, Boucher said.

The next ring is made up of Arab nations including US allies such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia that maintain ties with Arafat and may have influence over Palestinian militant groups or their financing.

Boucher said the outermost circle consists of European countries and the European Union that also talk with Arafat.

DEMO AGAINST ABBAS: Thousands of Palestinians denounced Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and his adherence to the US-backed roadmap after Israel killed a Hamas leader in a missile strike on Thursday.