RAMALLAH, March 31: The Israeli army on Sunday detained around 60 Palestinian young men in the West Bank village of Kobar, hometown of West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghuti, witnesses told AFP by telephone.

The army sent in around 25 armoured jeeps and three tanks as troops searched house to house, detaining the young men and loading them in two buses, which were then driven off to an unknown destination.

Barghuti, a vocal proponent of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, is accused by Israel of orchestrating anti-Israeli attacks as the head of the Tanzim, the generic name for gunmen linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.

Israeli forces also besieged West Bank security chief Colonel Jibril Rajoub’s headquarters southwest of Ramallah Saturday, demanding that he hand Barghuti over, Palestinian security officials said.

Rajoub told Al-Jazeera Arabic television he had refused, while officials said that Barghuti was not in the building in Beitunia.

The tanks and snipers were still around the building Sunday, officials said, while Arafat’s own headquarters were under tight siege in northern Ramallah.—AFP