Palestinians vow revenge for killing of Hamas head

4.00pm

GAZA - Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin threatens to unleash Palestinian revenge attacks that could trigger fresh security fears across the world.

Hamas, the main militant group behind suicide bombings against Israelis, vowed to strike back at the Jewish state with unprecedented ferocity after the wheelchair-bound cleric was killed on Monday in a missile strike outside a Gaza City mosque.

"The battle is open and war between us and them is open," said senior Hamas political leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction and also behind suicide bombings, called for "war, war, war on the sons of Zion... There will be a response within hours, God willing".

US President George W. Bush's administration said it was "deeply troubled" by the situation and appealed for regional calm., but unlike many other countries around the world declined to condemn the assassination.

The Bush administration said Israel had the right to defend itself against a "terrorist" group.

An Islamist internet site published a statement purporting to come from an al Qaeda-linked group, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade, vowing revenge on the United States and its allies for the killing of Hamas' founder and spiritual leader.

In the United States, stocks and the dollar plunged as news of Yassin's assassination contributed to investors' fears about global security.

"The world is clearly a very unsettled and dangerous place and that's demoralising to investors," said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer at First Albany Corp.

Israeli officials signalled that Yassin, the most prominent Palestinian leader killed since Israel's assassination of commando chief Abu Jihad in 1988, would probably not be the last to die. "The waiting list is long," a security source said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said to have personally ordered the helicopter attack on the paralysed 67-year-old Yassin, hailed the operation as a strike against "the first and foremost leader of the Palestinian terrorist murderers".

But some Israelis, including a member of Sharon's cabinet, Arab leaders and many Middle East political analysts said Yassin's death would only incite militants to more violence.

The European Union and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan denounced the attack on Yassin, which left his wheelchair smashed in a pool of blood.

Protests erupted in the West Bank and Gaza and Israeli forces killed four Palestinians, including an 11-year-old.

Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas attacked Israeli posts, drawing an air strike, after saying Israel would pay heavily.

In other violence, a Palestinian wounded three Israelis with an axe near Tel Aviv, and an Arab stabbed three passengers on a bus in Jaffa before fleeing.

Demonstrating the depth of Palestinian rage, about 200,000 mourners marched in Yassin's funeral procession, the largest gathering in Gaza in recent memory.

"Sharon, start preparing your body bags because (Hamas') Qassam Brigades will put Israeli houses in mourning," the crowd chanted.

Israeli security forces went on high alert nationwide. Israeli news media said there was also concern about the risk to Israeli and Jewish targets abroad.

Hours after the missile strike, Israel sent a small armoured column to secure a corridor of the northern Gaza Strip to stop angry militants firing makeshift rockets.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, widely regarded as a moderate in Arafat's Palestinian Authority, told reporters Yassin's killing "opened the door to chaos".

The strike on Yassin appeared to be part of Sharon's bid to smash the most potent Palestinian militant group to prevent it from claiming victory if he goes ahead with a withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza.

Instead, many analysts say, it could end produce a wave of new recruits to the Islamic fundamentalist movement and broaden its hardline appeal.

Israel stepped up strikes against Hamas, a group sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state, after suicide bombers killed 10 people at the port of Ashdod last week.

For many years Israel held back from killing Yassin, although he escaped an assassination attempt last September. Monday's attack killed seven other people.

Sharon has ruled out peace talks with the Palestinians until attacks on Israelis stop.

Under a go-it-alone plan if a US-backed peace "road map" remains stalled amid violence, Sharon has threatened to draw a West Bank "security line" that would leave the Palestinians with less land than they seek for a state.

- REUTERS