14-year-old suicide bomber arrested

8.15am

HAWARA CHECKPOINT, West Bank - The Israeli army says it has arrested a 14-year-old Palestinian would-be suicide bomber at a West Bank checkpoint after talking him into taking off his explosives vest at gunpoint.

The incident at Hawara checkpoint came nine days after a Palestinian porter of 12 was detained there on suspicion of trying to smuggle through a bomb and then freed after soldiers determined it was put into the boy's bag without his knowledge.

Militant factions have vowed to escalate attacks to avenge Israel's assassination of Hamas' spiritual leader on Monday. Palestinian witnesses named the 14-year-old arrested on Wednesday as Hussan Abdu from Nablus, just north of Hawara. The Israeli checkpoint commander said troops had assumed a safe distance after noticing the youth acting suspiciously.

"He was taken by surprise by the reflexes of the soldiers, who were very quick and aimed their weapons at him and took cover. He understood the explosion would not be effective as all the troops were already protected," the lieutenant-colonel, who gave his name as Guy, told Israel Radio.

He said troops ordered the youth to remove his shirt, exposing the vest underneath, and tossed him a pair of scissors with which to cut it free.

Sky television aired footage showing Abdu removing the bulky vest, which had a detonator wire hanging from it, as soldiers and Palestinian passersby watched from safety behind concrete barricades. Under instruction from an Arabic-speaking soldier, the youth is seen to raise his hands in surrender. Guy said a bomb had been defused by a remote-controlled robot and that the youth was being questioned.

Guy said it was not clear who had dispatched the youth. There was no immediate comment from Palestinian militant groups waging a more than three-year-old uprising.

Islamic militant group Hamas has led calls for stepped-up attacks against the Jewish state since its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, was assassinated in an Israeli air strike on Monday.

Israel accused the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, of slipping a bomb into the bag carried by the 12-year-old boy detained at Hawara on March 15. The Brigades denied involvement.

- REUTERS

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