MIDDLE EAST: Amid violent dissent within the Palestinian Authority and growing demands for radical reform, members of Mr Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO have called on him to surrender some authority.
The calls came after one of Mr Arafat's most loyal cabinet ministers, Mr Hassan Asfour, was attacked late on Monday night outside his home in Ramallah, and amid reports that Mr Arafat's Gaza security chief, Mr Mohammad Dahlan, has sent his family abroad for their safety and that a third Palestinian leader, Mr Mohammad Rashid, has been told to stay overseas after a failed attack on him.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, yesterday said he would have no dealings with the Palestinian Authority as it is constituted, describing it as "a corrupt, terrorist regime that is rotten and dictatorial", and demanding that it be "fundamentally reformed".
Ironically that same demand for "fundamental reform" and for Mr Arafat to relinquish some of his powers is reportedly contained in a new document drawn up by Fatah activists. Mr Sharon, who was speaking two days after his own Likud party defied him by voting through a resolution designed to rule out Palestinian statehood, made no reference whatsoever in his remarks to the statehood issue, but the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, said he had been assured by Mr Sharon that the Likud vote would not prompt any change in policy.
Visited in hospital yesterday by Mr Arafat, the injured Mr Asfour, who was attacked by five masked men and left with a broken wrist and head wounds, blamed Israel for the assault - a charge rejected by Israeli officials and privately ridiculed by Palestinians too. Rather, the attack was perceived as an indirect challenge to Mr Arafat himself, or ascribed to a deepening power struggle between the Palestinian Authority's two rival security chiefs, Mr Jibril Rajoub in the West Bank and Mr Dahlan in Gaza. Mr Dahlan is seen as a possible successor to Mr Arafat, and he and Mr Rashid have been identified by US officials as potential key moderates - all to Mr Rajoub's dismay.
Giving rare public expression to the rivalry, Mr Rajoub said in a television interview yesterday that he would not allow the dispute to descend to a situation in which Mr Dahlan "would be eliminated".
Mr Yasser Abed-Rabbo, the Palestinian Minister of Information, lambasted both the security chiefs, demanding that they "be silent and redirect their efforts to rebuilding the services destroyed by Israel" during last month's military offensive in the West Bank.
Mr Arafat is being pressured to change course from both within and without. His Fatah critics complain about corruption in the Authority. Rival groups assail him for consenting to the jailing in Jericho of six men wanted by Israel and to the deportation of 13 more to end the siege at the Church of the Nativity last week.
Mr Dahlan and Mr Rajoub, meanwhile, have long been urging him to give them the authority to properly confront Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and have drawn up separate proposals for the Bush Administration on a streamlined PA security apparatus.
And now the Egyptians and the Saudis are also pressing Mr Arafat hard to thwart the suicide bombings. Mr Dahlan sat in on the weekend's talks in Egypt, where President Mubarak and Crown Prince Abdullah discussed the need for a halt to such attacks and for Fatah's Al-Aksa Brigade to end its involvement in them. And Mr Mubarak dispatched his intelligence chief for a lightning visit to Mr Arafat yesterday to hammer home the point.
Among the 13 deportees is the Bethlehem leader of the Al-Aksa Brigades, Mr Ibrahim Abayat, alleged by Israel to have overseen suicide bombings, and two other Fatah men said by Israel to have helped orchestrate "successful" bombings in Jerusalem, Mr Mohammed Said Salem and Mr Nidal Abu Galif. Another member of the Abayat clan, Musa, is alleged to have been involved in the killings of three Israelis, while Mr Ismail Hamdan is said by Israel to have been directly involved in attacks in which two Israelis and an American were killed. Also in the 13 are two Hamas members alleged to have orchestrated failed suicide bombings, Mr Basem Hamud and Mr Aziz Jubran.
Israeli troops killed a Palestinian intelligence chief and one of his aides, alleged by Israel to have been involved in attacks, outside Hebron yesterday. The army said they died in a gun battle; witnesses said they were in a car in a driveway when shooting began.
Israeli police are holding six Israeli men allegedly involved in a far-right plot to blow up a Palestinian school in East Jerusalem, and are investigating whether any of the six are connected to a string of attacks claimed by settler groups on Palestinians in recent months, in which seven Palestinians have been killed.