Arafat Orders Radical Groups’ Members Detained

Angered by the brazen assault on his authority as well as the murderous attacks on Israelis, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat on Tuesday ordered the roundup of members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine after the group claimed responsibility for killing an Israeli security guard in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian police said they had arrested more than 90 members of the Marxist front and other radical groups after the ambush of two gasoline tankers in which an Israeli private security guard was killed and a second was seriously wounded as the small convoy entered the self-rule region Monday.

With Arafat vowing to fight “fanatic and extremist forces,” Palestinian security forces swept through Gaza City early Tuesday, seizing supporters of the groups from their homes and later from their offices. The arrests continued today.

In a related development, Israeli troops arrested 27 suspected members of the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, at the Islamic University in the West Bank town of Hebron, university officials said.

Israel has detained, mostly without charge or trial, more than 200 suspected Islamic fundamentalists since a Jan. 22 suicide bombing that killed 21 Israelis at the Beit Lid military muster point north of Tel Aviv.

Based in Syria, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a strong opponent of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s autonomy accord with Israel, claimed responsibility Monday for the Gaza ambush, making clear its intention of embarrassing Arafat and undermining negotiations on extending the pact to the West Bank. Hamas had also claimed responsibility Monday for the attack on the convoy.

“We won’t permit these groups to harm the Israelis, the Palestinians or the peace process,” Arafat declared.

Arafat refused to outline the Palestinian Authority’s next move against the radicals, but he suggested that it will be a sustained, full-fledged effort. “We’ve already taken major steps,” he said. “I don’t have a magic wand, but I’ll do all my best.”

Nihad abu Ghosh, a Democratic Front leader in Gaza, replied later, “This campaign comes in response to instructions from the Israeli government and is aimed at choking the opposition.” In a statement, the group said such arrests “will kindle popular discontent and indignation and thus create more violence.”

Abu Ghosh said the Gaza branch was not involved in Monday’s attack, that it was mounted by the Democratic Front’s military wing from “abroad.” The Democratic Front belongs to a 10-organization alliance of radical Palestinian groups opposed to the PLO’s accord with Israel.

Arafat has previously ordered mass arrests of his opponents, including Democratic Front leaders, but he has, just as quickly, released virtually all of the detainees.

Israeli officials have consequently accused Arafat of not doing enough to stop attacks and have threatened to delay the next stage of autonomy--a troop pullout from West Bank towns followed by Palestinian elections--until he does more.

Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin are to meet Thursday to discuss the security situation and advance the negotiations on self-rule.

In Cairo, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators resumed talks on the planned Palestinian elections Tuesday after a delay of two weeks following the Beit Lid bombing.

The elections, originally planned for last July, will give the Palestinians their first government and expand self-rule beyond Gaza and the West Bank town of Jericho to the entire West Bank. The 1993 accord also requires Israeli troops to pull out of Palestinian towns in the West Bank before the vote; Israel has postponed the withdrawal because of persistent violence.

Declaring Gaza “open for business,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown brought potential American investors to the autonomous area Tuesday to meet with Palestinian business leaders.

“We are bringing together a public-private partnership,” Brown said after meeting Arafat during a brief visit to Gaza City.

Private investment is a small part of the foreign money that, according to U.S. estimates, the Palestinians need to relieve the poverty that has driven many in the West Bank and Gaza into the camp of Muslim radicals who oppose peace with Israel.

Brown called for private investment in the Palestinian self-rule zones during a visit last year, but U.S. officials traveling with him Tuesday said that in the nine months of self-rule only one private Palestinian-American venture has been formed--a factory for making building materials.