MIDDLE EAST: A Palestinian delivery man from Jerusalem's Old City planned to bomb the office of Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon, police said yesterday, raising new concerns about the vulnerability of Israeli leaders to attack.
Hamas has regularly threatened to assassinate Mr Sharon and other Israeli political leaders, and renewed the threats in recent weeks after Israel killed its leaders, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, in Gaza missile strikes.
Security around prominent and controversial Israeli public figures has been significantly strengthened since November 1995, when an extremist Orthodox Jew, Yigal Amir, gunned down prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv. It was strengthened still further after Palestinian gunmen shot dead Israel's tourism minister, Rehavam Ze'evi, in a Jerusalem hotel in October 2001.
The thwarted bomber, Hussam Nabulsi, 38, worked for an Israeli courier firm, and had clearance and permits to enter several Israeli government facilities, including the prime minister's office near the entrance to Jerusalem. Mr Nabulsi was arrested on May 16, after being linked to a Hamas plot to blow up a synagogue in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Meah Shearim neighbourhood that day.
In what would be a very different reprieve for Mr Sharon, leaked reports from the attorney general's office indicate that a long-standing investigation into the prime minister, on suspicion of taking bribes, is to be closed in the next few days.
The investigation has sometimes overshadowed the prime minister's political agenda and, if it is closed, will represent a major boost as he champions his plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip.
Israel's military killed two militants, including a leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, in a missile attack on a car in the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday, Palestinian security sources said.
Palestinian security officials recovered fragments of what they said was a missile from the charred remains of a car in which Khalil Marshoud, an al-Aqsa brigades leader, and another militant were driving. Both men were killed in the blast.