MIDEAST: Hamas leaders said yesterday they had no plans to strike at US targets in the wake of Israel's assassination on Monday of the radical Islamic group's spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, but they did say that Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon would be a target.
In the West Bank, meanwhile, the army arrested a 14-year-old Palestinian boy at a checkpoint who was wearing an explosive-filled vest and who was planning to blow himself up, military officials said.
In the immediate aftermath of the Yassin killing, some militants in Gaza accused the US of giving Israel the go-ahead to carry out the strike and made veiled threats against America. But the new Hamas leader in Gaza, Mr Abdel Aziz Rantisi, said yesterday his group would direct its attacks at Israel alone.
"We are inside Palestinian land and acting only inside Palestinian land," the 56-year-old paediatrician said. "We are resisting the occupation, nothing else."
Nevertheless, in the wake of the assassination the State Department advised all its citizens in Gaza to get out and also issued a travel advisory to all Americans not to visit Israel or the West Bank. "Whether it be a Hamas threat or an al-Qaeda threat, we take them very seriously in this administration," President Bush said yesterday.
The leader of the Hamas political wing outside of the territories, Mr Khaled Mashaal, was quoted in an interview on the organisation's website yesterday as saying Mr Sharon was now in the firing line. Mr Mashaal, who is considered the most senior Hamas figure after Yassin's death and is based in Syria, said he hoped "that the holy warriors can retaliate against this awful crime by targeting the most prominent Zionist leaders . . . including Sharon."
Meanwhile at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus, troops said they spotted the would-be teenage bomber, Hussan Abdu, before he could detonate the explosive belt strapped to his stomach. Soldiers took up positions behind concrete barricades while the boy stood in a clearing with his hands above his head.
When it became clear the boy was unable to remove the vest, troops sent him a pair of scissors with the help of a yellow remote-controlled vehicle. The boy was then taken into custody and the bomb, weighing eight kilograms, was detonated.
The army said the boy told them he was given 100 shekels (about €20) to carry out the attack and that he had been told the only way he could have sexual relations was if he blew himself up and went to heaven.
The boy's mother, Tamam Abdu, told reporters that "this is shocking. To use a child like this is irresponsible, forbidden."
Chancellor Gordon Brown today ordered a freeze on the assets of Mr Rantisi, the new Hamas leader. - (PA)