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JENIN, Aug 2: The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, announced on Saturday it was ending its truce on anti-Israeli attacks after the arrest of 20 of its militants by Palestinian security forces.
“We have ordered the resumption everywhere of our attacks and in particular suicide operations,” the group said in a statement.
The Brigades’ decision came after Palestinian security personnel arrested some 20 militants inside the headquarters compound of veteran leader Arafat in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Saturday.
The group condemned the arrests, accusing those who carried them out, without naming them, of collaborating with Israel.
“This Americo-Zionist decision to arrest the activists was taken in Washington so that it could be applied in all Palestinian territories,” the statement went on.
“The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades will strike with an iron fist all those who carry out Zionist and American plans.”
At least 14 of those arrested on Saturday were members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat’s Fatah movement, a spokesman for the group said, adding the raid had taken place in the early hours.
It was not immediately clear if the statement, distributed in several towns in the West Bank, concerned the Brigades’ armed sections in their entirety or merely a breakaway faction.
The group is effectively under Yasser Arafat’s command and signed up to the three-month suspension of attacks against Israel along with other radical armed Palestinian groups, notably Hamas and Islamic Jihad, on June 29.
But a branch of the organization in Jenin has already made it clear it would not be bound by any truce agreement.
ISRAEL TO MAINTAIN PRESSURE: Israel has no intention of allowing Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat to move freely, despite the arrest of 20 wanted men at his headquarters, official Israeli sources said on Saturday.
But a top Israeli official said: “These arrests are above all designed to win back Arafat’s freedom of movement, but we have not the slightest intention of lifting the measures we have taken against him.”
Last year, Israeli troops staged frequent raids on the compound and for long months laid siege to it, claiming that Yasser Arafat was sheltering at least 20 wanted Palestinian officials accused of links to militant groups.
Although Israeli officials have recently said Mr Arafat is allowed to leave his battered headquarters, which is now little more than a heap of rubble, there is serious doubt that the aging Palestinian leader would be allowed to return.
US DROPS DEMAND: The Bush administration has backed away from demands that the Palestinian Authority dismantle militant groups immediately because it is concerned that the authority’s security forces are too weak, the New York Times said on Saturday.
The paper quoted US officials as saying they had come to accept the ceasefire that Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas negotiated with Hamas and other Palestinian groups.
The Times said that when the ceasefire was negotiated in June, it was belittled by Israeli and American officials as a poor substitute for tough actions against militants. But as attacks on Israelis had declined and Palestinian support for Mr Abbas seemed to have grown, Americans had changed their tone.
“Both sides now think the ceasefire is a good idea and the early Israeli scepticism has changed,” the paper quoted a senior US official as saying.
But Israeli officials, asked about the Times report, said they doubted that Washington had changed its view on the urgency of disarming militants, insisting it remained a priority.—AFP / Reuters
