US says no evidence against Arafat last year

10.00am

WASHINGTON - The US State Department has absolved Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his senior associates of responsibility for attacks on Israelis in 2001 and said Israel had made Arafat's Palestinian Authority less effective by destroying its security infrastructure.

In its annual report Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001, the State Department said members of Arafat's Fatah movement had taken part, however, in attacks on Israel through the Tanzim organisation and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

It said Tanzim was "made up of small and loosely organised cells of militants drawn from the street-level membership of Fatah." "Some Tanzim militants also were active in al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade," it added.

"That's not a secret, but we have not been able to determine or to make final judgment on how far up and who in the PA may be or could be and had been directing this activity," added State Department counterterrorism coordinator Frank Taylor, briefing reporters on the report.

"That is why we have been very straightforward with Chairman Arafat that within the Palestinian areas that he has control over and over the Palestinians that he has control over that we believe that he can do much more to control the activities of those groups," he added.

The State Department's attitude on the alleged links between Arafat and attacks on Israelis has irritated supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Israel and in the United States, especially in Congress. Israel blames the Palestinian Authority for not doing enough to prevent suicide bombings and other attacks that have killed dozens of Israelis.

In its six-month reports to Congress on the conduct of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the State Department has repeatedly refrained from saying Arafat and his close associates ordered or approved attacks on Israelis.

Most of the attacks have traditionally been by the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which contest Arafat's leadership and are outside his immediate control.

When Sharon visited the United States this month, he brought stacks of Palestinian documents that allegedly proved Arafat gave money to extremists.

Taylor said: "We don't have any question about the authenticity of the documents... We are continuing to study those documents and to draw our own conclusions about what they mean. We have not completed that."

The annual report, which covered events to the end of December 2001, said the Palestinian Authority had taken only sporadic measures against extremists.

It added, "Israel's destruction of the PA's security infrastructure contributed to the ineffectiveness of the PA."

Israeli forces repeatedly attacked and destroyed Palestinian security offices in Gaza and the West Bank during 2001, charging Palestinian security officials had colluded with militants. The attacks sometimes faced criticism from the United States.

"Certainly the military activity there did do a great deal to damage the security capability and the security apparatus of the Palestinian Authority," Taylor said.

The report noted attacks on Palestinian civilians and properties in Gaza and the West Bank by Jewish extremists and settlers in 2001, saying at least five people were killed.

"Investigations into many of these attacks produced inconclusive results, leading to several arrests but no formal charges," it added.

- REUTERS

More from the terrorism report:

US sees Libya, Sudan helpful against 'terrorism'

US adds more Islamic militants to terrorism watchlist

Feature: Middle East

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