20 January 2004	Tuesday	27 Ziqa'ad 1424

TEL AVIV, Jan 19: Israeli army chief General Moshe Yaalon said on Monday that Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, founder of the Hamas, was a target for assassination.

"For us, Sheikh Yassin is a target for liquidation, given that there is no distinction to be made between the political and military leadership of Hamas," he told Israel's Channel 2 television.

"The question of the legitimacy of such an operation is behind us. What matters now is the opportunity and our interest," said the general. Gen Yaalon accused Sheikh Yassin of having "personally ordered" Wednesday's Hamas suicide bombing at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel that killed four Israelis, three of them soldiers.

Hamas warned on Saturday that Israel would "drown in a sea of blood" if it tried to kill Sheikh Yassin, the movement's spiritual leader. "Israel will pay a high price for any attempt to hurt Sheikh Yassin or any other Hamas leader," Ezzedine al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said in a statement.

The warning was in response to a veiled threat by Israel's deputy defence minister Zeev Boim to resume the policy of assassinating Palestinian militants after he said the elderly sheikh was a marked man.

"Sheikh Yassin is marked for death, and he should hide himself deep underground where he will not know the difference between day and night. And we will find him in the tunnels, and we will eliminate him," Mr Boim said on Thursday. -AFP