Strike on Hamas threatens 'road map' says US

7.30am

The United States today criticised Israel's attempt to kill a Hamas leader, saying US President George W Bush was "deeply troubled" and the attack could delay his Middle East peace plan.

Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi of the militant Hamas Palestinian group was wounded in Tuesday's helicopter attack. The strike killed two others, wounded 20 and threatened to sabotage the peace "road map" endorsed by Israeli and Palestinian leaders last week at a summit with Bush.

"The president is concerned that the strike will undermine efforts by Palestinian authorities and others to bring an end to terrorist attacks and does not contribute to the security of Israel," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters.

"In looking at the progress that must be made for the road map and then looking at this attack, the president is deeply troubled by it," Fleischer said.

The United States expressed concerns over the attack directly to the Israelis and Palestinians, Fleischer said.

Bush directed senior administration officials, including national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, to "carry that message" directly to their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts, Fleischer said. "A rather full-court press has been made," he added.

He had no immediate comment on a second Israeli helicopter attack, which killed three Palestinians and wounded 32 in the Gaza Strip. "We will study this carefully to see what the facts and circumstances are," Fleischer said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell told a news conference in Buenos Aires: "We are concerned that this type of activity will delay the plan of progress we are hoping for as we move down the road map."

Bush's plan for a Palestinian state by 2005 requires the Palestinian Authority to immediately rein in anti-Israeli violence. But Hamas, considered a "terrorist" group by the United States, has rejected the plan as too generous to Israel.

Rantissi, a senior political aide to Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in the past week rejected calls by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to end attacks on the Israelis. Hamas refuses to disarm until Israel withdraws from the West Bank and Gaza.

The assassination attempt followed the killing of four Israeli soldiers on Sunday in Gaza in a rare joint operation by Hamas and two other Palestinian groups.

Fleischer reiterated a long-held US position that Israel had a right to defend itself.

But he also said, "Israel has to act on that right in a manner that is consistent with larger objectives, and in this case (of the assassination attempt), the president views this as deeply troubling."

- REUTERS