- Arafat owns up to arms shipment - dira, 14.02.2002, 21:50
Arafat owns up to arms shipment
<h2>Arafat owns up to arms shipment: Powell</h2>
By Nazir Majally & Ali Al-Saleh
WASHINGTON/GAZA, 14 February - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has"accepted responsibility" for the foiled arms-smuggling attempt aboard the Palestinian-captained Karine A, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday."(Arafat) wrote me a letter three days ago on the Karine A, accepting responsibility, not personal responsibility but as chairman of the Palestinian Authority," Powell told reporters.
A shipment of some 50 tons of weapons aboard the Palestinian-captained ship was seized by the Israeli authorities in the Red Sea. Israel said several senior Palestinian officials were involved in the attempt to smuggle the arms into Palestinian territories.
Media reports meanwhile said that Arafat had a stormy meeting with his West Bank preventive security chief Jibril Rajoub on Monday. A Palestinian official said Arafat had raged against Rajoub in the meeting as mobs freed hard-line activists from jails.
"Arafat expressed his extreme anger at Rajoub, reprimanding him for not having prevented the liberation of 17 detainees on Monday evening from Hebron prison," said the official, who did not want to be identified.
The reports said Arafat had accused Rajoub, often tipped as a potential successor, of trying to replace him, and even threatened him with a pistol. Arafat also threatened to sack Rajoub, the reports said.
A senior Palestinian official told Asharq Al-Awsat that in a fit of anger Arafat slapped Rajoub on the face. But he denied that Arafat pulled a gun on him.
For his part, Rajoub accused Arafat"of not having a clear political position, of giving contradictory orders, and of entering into political negotiations which led nowhere", the papers said.
He also accused the Palestinian leader"of not making sure his orders were being followed on the ground and not fighting effectively against Hamas and Islamic Jihad", the media reports said.
Arafat fired Rajoub after a serious row in 1996, but his decision never took effect, a Palestinian official said.
Monday's row was reported in the press as Israeli forces killed five Palestinian policemen in the Gaza Strip after threatening to carve"security zones" in Palestinian areas to protect Israeli cities against missile attacks.
The policemen were killed during a pre-dawn Israeli raid into three Palestinian areas in Gaza in what the army said were"anti-terror" raids in response to Sunday's unprecedented launch of two Qassam-2 rockets at Israel by Hamas. But by the evening, Israeli tanks had rumbled out of the northern town of Beit Hanoun, after withdrawing earlier from Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza and Beit Lahiya in the north.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw arrived in Israel and began talks with Israeli officials ahead of meetings with Palestinian leaders. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer was due to arrive on a similar visit today.
Straw told reporters it was up to Arafat to clamp down on terrorism as"a first step" toward ending the violence.
He avoided direct criticism of the Gaza raids, saying:"I regret the death of anybody in this region."
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