Suicide bombing sends warning to Palestinian PM

Attack at train station kills security guard and injures 13, but also sets militant groups on collision course with Mahmoud Abbas

A Palestinian suicide bomber killed a security guard and wounded at least 13 other people yesterday when he detonated explosives strapped to his body at the entrance to an Israeli train station. The bombing, only 24 hours after the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, resolved his differences with Yasser Arafat, was a stark signal from Palestinian militants.

Mr Abbas wants to take on the militant groups and stop the suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis. The blood and pieces of flesh that spattered the steps to Kfar Saba station were the militants' reply.

The Israeli government said Mr Abbas would be invited for talks with Ariel Sharon once his cabinet was approved by the Palestinian Parliament. President George Bush has also promised to release his "road-map" peace plan, which calls for an independent Palestinian state.

The stage is being set for a dangerous confrontation between Mr Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, and the militants. The Nablus wing of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for yesterday's suicide bombing. But a spokesman for the main leadership of the al-Aqsa Brigades said his organisation was not responsible and blamed a rogue splinter group.

A source close to the al-Aqsa Brigades in Nablus denied that the bombing had been timed to coincide with Wednesday's agreement between Mr Abbas and Mr Arafat. But only a few days ago, a pamphlet was distributed in Nablus signed by al-Aqsa, warning that if Mr Abbas tried to crack down on the militants they would respond with renewed suicide bomb attacks inside Israel.

The suicide bombing in Kfar Saba, a satellite town of Tel Aviv, could have been much worse were it not for the actions of Alexander Kostyuk, the security guard who died. He spotted the bomber, who was wearing a heavy black coat despite soaring temperatures, before he could get inside the train station and demanded to see his ID card, witnesses said. The bomber detonated his explosives, and Mr Kostyuk was hit by the full force of the 5kg bomb. The Nablus al-Aqsa Brigades named the bomber, who died in the blast, as Ahmad Khatib, 18, from Balata refugee camp in Nablus. Had he got inside the busy train station, the death toll could have been much higher. As it was, the nails with which Palestinian militants routinely pack their bombs caused serious injuries.

That the bombing was claimed by al-Aqsa is a sign of a looming problem for Mr Abbas. Unlike the Islamist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Brigades support Mr Arafat as Palestinian leader – or at least did until recently – and have links with his Fatah organisation.

Some factions in the al-Aqsa Brigades will oppose Mr Abbas's attempts to rein them in. Scores of gun-toting al-Aqsa militants, many of them masked, marched through the Balata camp in a show of force yesterday, shouting slogans against the Palestinian Authority.

They were protesting after Palestinian security forces arrested four militants who broke into a Palestinian courtroom and opened fire at the defendant, Samir al-Bishawi, who was on trial for killing an al-Aqsa Brigades leader.

When Hani al-Hassan, the outgoing Interior Minister, tried to rein in the al-Aqsa Brigades by condemning a suicide bombing, the Nablus branch openly threatened to kill him if he set foot in the city again – but didn't when he called their bluff.

* The Israeli government denied that it had agreed to allow Mr Arafat to travel freely in return for his backing down in the dispute with Mr Abbas. Israeli security forces have confined Mr Arafat to his office complex in Ramallah for months.