Arafat backs speaker as successor to Abu Mazen

By DONALD MACINTYRE in Jerusalem

Yasser Arafat sought to extract the Palestinian Authority from a crisis threatening to destroy the peace process last night by nominating Abu Ala, also known as Ahmed Korei, the parliamentary speaker, as the next Prime Minister.

He announced the appointment to the Fatah central committee, while Israel was on a heightened security alert after an attack by F-16 jets on the Hamas founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, at a house in Gaza on Saturday.

Sheikh Yassin was only slightly hurt. About 3,000 students marched in Gaza City yesterday in support of Sheikh Yassin. Hamas vowed revenge for the attack and said that Israel had opened the "gates of hell".

But the Israeli Prime minister Ariel Sharon warned that Hamas leaders were now "marked for death" and would not have a moment's rest.

Israel sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip to prevent Palestinians leaving the occupied territories and intensified protection for leading Israeli politicians.

Mr Arafat tried to ease the mounting political crisis by making known his choice to replace Abu Mazen, who resigned on Saturday after just over four months in the job. Although the post needs to be confirmed by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Mr Arafat's nomination is likely to make this a formality.

More immediately doubtful is whether the appointment of Abu Ala, formally known as Ahmed Qureia, will be accepted by the US and Israel. Israel has indicated in the past that it was not prepared to deal with Mr Arafat or anyone directly representing him. At the very least both Washington and Tel Aviv are likely to wait before seeing the exact terms of his appointment.

The crisis over the Prime Minister's demand for more security and other powers from Mr Arafat remains unresolved. Earlier, officials close to Mr Arafat had indicated that Abu Mazen remained his "first choice" as Prime Minister and he had been invited to remain in charge of a caretaker for at least two weeks.

Abu Mazen appeared to give conflicting signals about his own intentions, saying both that it was "premature" to discuss whether he might at some point return to the job and that his decision to resign was "final".

Most legislators believe that there is no chance of his returning unless his power struggle with Mr Arafat is resolved, and that an alternative figure is therefore becoming a live possibility.

The Interior Minister Mohammad Dahlan, another figure who finds favour with the US and Israel, said that he was not prepared to serve except under Abu Mazen.

Of the possible candidates remotely congenial to Mr Arafat, President of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Ala is thought the likeliest to be acceptable to Israel because he has stood up to him in past conflicts and was a supporter of the Oslo peace accords.

The US made clear it was not in favour of repeated calls by a group of Israeli cabinet ministers for Mr Arafat to be expelled, partly because it could make it politically impossible for any Palestinian leader to continue in office and because it would merely give Mr Arafat the chance to tour international capitals drumming up support rather than confining him to his besieged redoubt in Ramallah.

Nevertheless the Israeli Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom repeated the calls to expel Mr Arafat, telling Israel Radio: "As long as Arafat is in the region, he won't let any other leader develop."

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