Middle East peace bid in turmoil after 25 killed

3.30pm

JERUSALEM - The US Middle East peace bid was in turmoil on Thursday after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 16 people on a Jerusalem bus and Israeli helicopters killed nine Palestinians in strikes on militants.

Watching his "road map" peace plan engulfed in a new round of killing, President George W Bush condemned the Jerusalem bombing and called on "all the free world...to use every ounce of their power to prevent them".

But promises of more attacks by the militant Hamas group, which claimed responsibility for the Jerusalem blast, and a vow by Israel to track down and kill more Palestinian militants bode poorly for US hopes of rekindling its peace initiative.

Sixteen people were killed and more than 100 wounded when a Palestinian suicide bomber disguised as an ultra-Orthodox Jew blew himself up on a crowded bus in central Jerusalem during the afternoon rush hour.

The blast tore through the bus near the city's main open-air market, decapitating passengers and strewing the street with body parts.

Minutes later, Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles at a car in Gaza City, killing two top Hamas militants and five bystanders. At around midnight, two more Hamas militants were killed in another helicopter missile strike.

Hamas said it sent the bomber to avenge Israel's botched attempt to assassinate Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, a co-founder of Hamas, in a missile attack in Gaza on Tuesday.

Israel officials said the bomber behind Wednesday's attack was dispatched before its attempt on Rantissi and that 10 suicide bombers had been arrested by Israeli security forces since a US-brokered peace summit in Jordan last week.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat condemned both the Jerusalem bombing and the Israeli missile strike on Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, undeterred by a rare rebuke from Bush for the attempt on Rantissi, vowed to pursue militants "to the fullest extent". But he also said Israel was deeply committed to moving forward towards peace.

Bush launched the peace plan just last week with Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, in the hope of ending 32 months of bloodshed. But strike and bloody counter-strike have followed.

On Wednesday, Shirli Rafael, a 25-year-old municipal worker, rushed to the scene of the bus bombing but was so shocked by what she saw that she froze in her tracks.

"I saw dead people. Severed hands and fingers lay at my feet. I saw a lot of women covered with blood -- their skin was scorched. There was a headless body near the door," she said.

Police said the bomb was packed with nails for maximum effect. The vehicle's windows were shattered and its roof partly blown off.

At the same time, scenes of carnage unfolded in Palestinian-ruled Gaza City, where Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles at a car moments after the Jerusalem bombing.

Hamas identified one of the dead militants as Tito Massaoud, a leader of its military wing. An Israeli security source said he was involved in the launching of home-made Qassam rockets against southern Israel and Jewish settlements in Gaza.

Palestinian sources said the second militant was a former bodyguard for Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas' spiritual leader.

"Pools of blood, cut-off body parts, cut-off heads -- this is what I saw," one witness in Gaza said.

Bush had expressed concern that the assassination attempt on Rantissi could weaken Abbas, who had been trying to convince militants to resume ceasefire talks. Sharon's aides said Bush's censure caught him by surprise but that he was standing firm.

Bush told aides to lean on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to stick to their commitments to the road map, which stipulates reciprocal measures leading to a Palestinian state by 2005.

Despite the setbacks, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States' commitment to the peace process was unshaken.

- REUTERS