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Palestinians face pressure to crack down on militants

Israel revives threat to expel Arafat

REUTERS, Gaza
The Palestinian leadership faced tough US and international pressure yesterday to crack down on militant groups after a roadside bombing that killed three US security men in the Gaza Strip.
The United States was sending a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team to the region and made clear that Washington, whose plan for Palestinian-Israeli peace has been stymied by more violence, would play a key role in inquiries.
It blamed the Palestinian Authority for security lapses that led to Wednesday's killings, the first slayings of Americans in a three-year-old Palestinian uprising against Israel, and took a tough line on terms for resuming Middle East diplomacy.
President Bush said Palestinian authorities should have acted long ago "to fight terror in all its forms.
"The failure to create effective Palestinian security forces dedi-
cated to fighting terror continues to cost lives," he said in a statement on the bombing.
"I condemn in the strongest terms the vicious act of terrorism directed against Americans in Gaza today."
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie pledged cooperation and President Yasser Arafat told BBC television that he was mobilizing his security team to find the attackers.
"We will send all of them, the majority of them, to settle this point, to (find out) who are behind it and who are working this dirty and shameful and very serious attack against our friends and our colleagues, the Americans," he said.
Palestinian security sources said Arafat named Major-General Abdel-Razek al-Majaydeh, head of Palestinian national security forces in Gaza, to oversee the Palestinian inquiry into the attack and he planned to meet USinvestigators on Thursday.
A bomb apparently detonated by remote control crumpled a silver, armor-plated jeep in a US convoy and tore a crater in the road. Body parts and debris were flung meters (yards) away.
Palestinian militant groups denied involvement in the attack. But the United States, the United Nations, and Europe blamed the bombing on lax Palestinian security.
UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said the attack "underscores the vital need for the Palestinian Authority to revamp and strengthen its security forces so such terror attacks do not occur."
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana wrote to Arafat insisting he "react seriously" to the attack. "Condemnations and excuses will not do," a spokeswoman reported Solana as saying.
Secretary of State Colin Powell stressed to Qurie in a phone call that "it was important that the Palestinian Authority take action to
put an end to violence and terrorism," according to a Palestinian official said.
AFP adds: Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom revived yesterday the Israeli threat to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat following the bombing ambush of a US diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip that killed three Americans.
"The Palestinians, and Arafat at their head, continue to encourage terrorist attacks, and I believe that, at the end of the day, the Americans realize that as long as Arafat remains in the region, it will not be possible to see emerge another, moderate Palestinian leadership prepared for dialogue with Israel," Shalom told public radio.
Following two suicide bombings in early September, which left 15 Israelis dead in Jerusalem and near Tel Aviv, the Israeli security cabinet approved in principle the forcible expulsion of Arafat, but left the timing of such a move open to question.