Security Alert to Stay After Reported Sweep

Israeli officials said security forces will remain on alert after their success at cracking a network of militants linked to Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden. Israel disclosed Monday that, over the past few weeks, it had arrested 23 suspected guerrillas allegedly planning bombing attacks on Israelis. Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s security advisor, Danny Yatom, said he had no information about where the Bin Laden cell was planning to strike. The militant Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have in the past tried to sabotage Israeli-Palestinian peace deals by launching large-scale bombing attacks against Israeli targets, killing scores of people. Palestinian officials denied Israel’s assertions that they were involved with the militants and that Nabil Aukal, a Palestinian man whom Israel arrested in June, was the cell’s ringleader.