Israeli troops capture two senior militants
Israeli troops today captured two Palestinian militants responsible for last week’s suicide bombing at a train station near Tel Aviv.
The fugitives were caught after a six-hour stand-off and a gun battle at a block of flats in the West Bank city of Nablus. Two soldiers were hurt.
An Associated Press photographer said the names of the pair – Amir Thoqan and Allam Kabi – were written in blood on the wall of their hideout.
Palestinian residents who saw them being led away said one was wounded.
Thoqan is the local leader of a splinter group of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, an extremist militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.
Kabi leads the local military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical PLO faction.
The groups’ took joint responsibility for Thursday’s suicide bombing at a railway station in central Israel that killed a security guard, and also a shooting attack at an Israeli motorist late yesterday.
The driver was lightly hurt when her car came to a sudden stop, but was not hit by gunfire.
In Israel meanwhile, opposition leader Amram Mitzna pledged to support Prime Minister Ariel Sharon if he backs the US-sponsored “road map” to peace, which envisions Palestinian statehood within three years.
Washington says it will present the plan after Palestinian Prime Minister-designate Mahmoud Abbas is confirmed by the Palestinian legislature. The vote is expected either tomorrow or on Wednesday.
Two hardline factions in Sharon’s four-party coalition oppose the plan, which would require Israel, among other things, to freeze construction in Jewish settlements.
The hardliners have threatened to quit the government over concessions, raising the possibility Sharon might lose his parliamentary majority.
But Mitzna said his moderate Labour party, which is in opposition, would provide a parliamentary safety net for Sharon to vote on the road map.
Also today, in the West Bank town of Qalqiliya, security forces demolished a house belonging to a suicide bomber who blew himself up near Tel Aviv six months ago, killing an elderly woman, the army said.
Israel routinely demolishes the houses of Palestinians it says are involved in militant activities as a deterrent. Palestinians say the demolitions are collective punishment.
