Arafat tries to rein in Hamas

Yasser Arafat today faced the prospect of civil war as his attempt to arrest the leader of the militant group carrying out suicide bombings in Israel appeared to backfire spectacularly.

Thousands of demonstrators and gunmen from Hamas confronted Palestinian security forces when they attempted to place Sheikh Ahmed Yassin under house arrest at his Gaza City home.

At one stage Palestinian Authority police were forced to retreat after exchanging fire with Hamas militants. One protester and one policeman were injured.

Yassin, who is a wheelchair-bound paraplegic, was brought out of his house to call for calm, eventually persuading his followers to leave the area "to avoid a confrontation".

Hamas has made it clear that fighting between Palestinian groups is unwarranted. However, there is the prospect of further clashes later today if Hamas supporters return. To add to the tension a mass demonstration has been called by Mr Arafat's Fatah faction to support the Palestinian leader and it is expected that many will march through Gaza City.

Mr Arafat's credibility as president of the Palestinian Authority is on a knife edge as he finds himself squeezed between Israeli demands that he stop the terrorists, and fury on the street at any moves against groups engaged in resistance to Israeli occupation.

In his boldest move yet against Hamas, Mr Arafat's men planned to cut off Yassin's telephone and bar all visitors other than relatives.

But Palestinian security men surrounding Yassin's home last night were forced to retreat when supporters, some masked and armed, flooded the area. Some 3,000 demonstrators threw stones at police and set a police vehicle on fire, security officials said.

The protest followed calls on mosque loudspeakers to support Yassin, witnesses said. "We are all angry at the corrupt Palestinian leadership," one Hamas supporter said, accusing the Palestinian police of trying to provoke a "civil war".

Yassin, 65, is the most prominent leader to be reined in since a roundup of militants began after Hamas claimed responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 25 people in Jerusalem and Haifa last weekend. He has resisted calls by the Palestinian-leader to implement a truce. Though he was jailed for years by Israel and was briefly put under house arrest by Mr Arafat in 1998, Hamas was, in its early days, encouraged by the Israeli security forces as a useful counter to the PLO's secular nationalism.

Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, said the move against Yassin was not enough. "That's not stopping the suicide bombers. They've got to stop the ones who are doing the crimes," he said.

Hamas, which opposes Israel's existence, says the bombings were in revenge for Israel's killing of one of its military leaders.

Israel's response to the suicide bombings was the fiercest air strikes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the start of the uprising in September 2000. They killed two, injured more than 100 and destroyed Palestinian security positions, the Gaza airport and Mr Arafat's helicopters.

The Israeli government has agreed a 12-hour pause in the offensive to allow Mr Arafat to add to the 121 arrests he has already made. It has given Arafat a list of 36 militants it wants arrested and the locations of laboratories where bombs were being manufactured.