MIDDLE EAST: In the most serious attack to date on a Palestinian Authority official by the gunmen who have brought chaos to the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, the Strip's intelligence chief was critically wounded in an ambush yesterday and two of his bodyguards were killed.
Mr Tareq Abu Rajab was on his way to his office in Gaza City in a two-car convoy when it was ambushed in what was plainly an assassination attempt. Witnesses said the gunmen fired from two vehicles, killing the two bodyguards and badly injuring Mr Abu Rajab. So serious were his injuries that he was rushed across the Gaza border to a southern Israeli hospital for treatment.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the latest in a series of violent incidents that have stemmed from dissent in the Palestinian territories over the policies of the Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, and from Mr Arafat's subsequent efforts to reassert control.
Mr Abu Rajab had taken over as head of the PA's intelligence apparatus in the Strip because the previous commander, Mr Amin al-Hindi, quit in a dispute with Mr Arafat over other appointments and has recently been publicly critical of the PA chief.
Mr Abu Rajab has been close to Mr Arafat for many years, and was not hitherto regarded as a figure of particular contention. The shooting came on the day Mr Arafat met for a third time the figure most prominently associated with the mounting dissent, another Gaza-based security-apparatus veteran, Mr Muhammad Dahlan, who has led calls for reforms in the PA.
Soon after the attack, Palestinian parliamentarians voted through a series of PA reforms, providing for Mr Arafat to delegate authority over the security forces to his Prime Minister, Mr Ahmed Korei, and for elections that they hoped would eliminate members of Mr Arafat's so-called "old guard" from key positions of power.
But Mr Arafat has baulked at approving any such changes.
The internal Gaza violence has mounted as Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, pushes towards an Israeli withdrawal from the Strip over the next year - a "disengagement" programme that is dividing his own Likud Party and has weakened his coalition. Mr Sharon has been holding intermittent contacts with leaders of the opposition Labour Party with a view to it joining him in a "unity government", a move favoured by veteran Labour leader Shimon Peres.
Last night many other senior Labour politicians insisted Mr Peres put a halt to the contacts, and that the party instead pledge unconditional support for disengagement from the opposition benches.
But Mr Peres prevailed, and the Labour negotiating team remains open to offers from Mr Sharon.