Islamic Jihad Says It Ambushed Tourist Bus; Egypt Arrests Suspect : Mideast: Shamir postpones Likud debate on peace talks as Israel mourns.

The Islamic Jihad movement was responsible for the bloody weekend attack on an Israeli tourist bus near Cairo, a Palestinian terrorist group announced Monday, as Israel mourned the attack’s victims and moves toward Middle East peace talks appeared chilled.

Also Monday, Egyptian authorities arrested a suspect in the attack and said the man was a Palestinian who came to Egypt two weeks ago with his accomplices.

Egypt’s state-owned Middle East New Agency quoted an unidentified police official as saying that one suspect was arrested but gave no further details.

In Israel, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir canceled a pivotal meeting of his Likud Party to debate the government’s stand on peace talks.

Rightist Likud leaders gave no alternate time for the meeting, which was expected to bring out bitter opposition to Shamir’s plan to hold elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Likud politicians led by Trade and Industry Minister Ariel Sharon believe that talks will lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state next to Israel.

“It is clear we don’t think now about internal struggle,” Shamir said Monday. In a short speech to the Israeli Parliament, he held Egypt responsible for the safety of Israelis in Egypt and called on Cairo to round up and prosecute the terrorists.

“The entire family of Israel has to absorb this tragedy,” added Deputy Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As many as 11 Israelis were killed, and 21 were wounded.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid declared in Cairo that the machine-gun and grenade attack “forms a challenge to the peace process, but we are ready to face this challenge and continue the work to reach stability and peace in the area.”

Diplomats and government officials here said the postponement of the Likud meeting likely also will delay plans for a meeting next week between the foreign ministers of Egypt, Israel and Secretary of State James A. Baker III to set in motion a direct dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians as a first step toward peacefully resolving one of the region’s most troubling conflicts.

On Monday, the radio of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command said Islamic Jihad carried out the attack Sunday “at a time when preparations are under way . . . to hold a dialogue of capitulation. . . .” It called Islamic Jihad “the heroes of our great Palestinian people.”

A group claiming to represent Muslim activists jailed in Egypt earlier had claimed responsibility for the ambush.

In a written statement delivered to a Western news agency in Jordan on Monday, Islamic Jihad said: “Our struggle with the Jews will continue until victory and with the help of God to smash all those who dream about a peaceful solution” in the Middle East.

The claim appeared to coincide with witness reports that the two men who ambushed the bus, throwing hand grenades and spraying it with machine-gun fire, spoke a non-Egyptian Arabic dialect.

“It’s logical that this could be from a Palestinian group,” one Western diplomat said, “because the peace process is now entering a critical period of time, and every time the peace process enters a critical period there has been a terrible act undertaken. This is always the case.

“The question is whether or not this will affect the process or not, and the answer is, I don’t think it will,” he added. “Maybe it will postpone the process for a few days, but maybe it’s wise to postpone the Likud Party meeting, not to have it in the kind of emotional mood that would generate problems for Shamir.”

Meanwhile, Egyptian authorities continued a nationwide search for clues and suspects in in the attack.

News agencies earlier had reported the arrest of three men at Cairo International Airport who allegedly were detained for several hours on suspicion of carrying forged Saudi passports.

An Israeli Embassy official confirmed the detentions, but Egypt’s news agency denied there were arrests at the airport.

Authorities said they had found the car believed used by the gunmen in the attack, a rental vehicle abandoned in the town of Shebeen Kanater, 15 miles northeast of Cairo. Used cartridges matching the guns used in the ambush reportedly were found in the vehicle. Police also reportedly were examining an apartment in the town that had been rented by two Jordanians of Palestinian origin.

In Tel Aviv, anxious relatives greeted a planeload of survivors at Ben-Gurion Airport, and Israel Radio carried interviews with passengers.

Police tried to confine relatives at the airport to a domestic waiting room, but a woman broke a window and rushed out screaming “Mother, Mother!” before being restrained by security agents.

Radio stations played subdued music as reports came in on the deaths. The tour group to Egypt was made up of mainly middle-age doctors and other professionals, Israeli newspapers said. About 90,000 Israelis vacationed in Egypt last year.

Netanyahu charged that American and Egyptian contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization “legitimized this kind of attack.” Referring to the PLO, which he said had “close ties” with Islamic Jihad, a shadowy terrorist group active in Lebanon, Netanyahu added: “Those who wait for this beast to be domesticated will be disappointed.”

Members of the center-left Labor Party, meanwhile, said they saw the bus massacre as an emotional obstacle to peace efforts. Labor, a junior partner in government, is viewed as more ready than Likud to open talks with the Palestinians.

“There is no doubt that those who carried it out planned it in advance in order to harm the Israelis, harm Israel’s ties with Egypt and maybe harm the chances of achieving peace in the region,” Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who authored the original election proposal, said.

“We must not allow a few terrorists to murder the peace process,” added Finance Minister Shimon Peres, head of the Labor Party.

Faisal Husseini, a top Palestinian leader in the West Bank, condemned the attack. “We are against this act,” he declared. “It doesn’t matter who committed it.”

However, he and other Palestinians said that Israel must share blame because of the slow pace of peace negotiations. Husseini is frequently mentioned as a likely member of the Palestinian negotiating team.