RAMALLAH, Nov 21: Israeli soldiers shot dead three Palestinians, including a wanted militant, in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.

The violence occurred just before the arrival of US Secretary of State Colin Powell for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to smooth the way for a Jan 9 Palestinian election to choose a successor to the late Yasser Arafat.

Palestinian sources said one of the dead was a local commander of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group in the mainstream Fatah faction. They were not immediately able to identify the other dead.

Israeli military officials said a special army unit sent to a neighbourhood of Ramallah came under fire from three Palestinians and killed them by return fire. One military official said the incident began when soldiers approached the car where the militant they wanted to arrest was sitting along with two other people.

"The people in the car realized they had been identified. They got out of the car and fired at the forces. From the shooting one of the soldiers was wounded. The forces returned fire and hit all three," the official said.

Israeli radio stations said the other two were also militants. There has been a relative lull in Israeli-Palestinian violence since President Yasser Arafat died of an undisclosed illness at a French hospital on Nov 11.

The Israeli army has said it was curtailing operations to enable a smooth transition of power to new Palestinian leaders. -Reuters