Palestinians arrest three suspects in killing of Israeli Cabinet minister

Palestinian security forces arrested three suspects in the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister, meeting a key Israeli condition for lifting a travel ban on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The arrests were announced by the Palestinian intelligence chief in the West Bank town of Nablus, Col. Talal Dweikat, who said the arrest order came directly from Arafat.

Israel has said Arafat could only leave the West Bank town of Ramallah once the assassins of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi have been arrested. Arafat has been confined to Ramallah since December.

Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said that if the Palestinians provided evidence that the suspects had been arrested, the travel ban on Arafat would be lifted.

Zeevi was shot and killed in the hallway of a Jerusalem hotel on Oct. 17. A radical PLO faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, carried out the assassination, saying it was avenging the killing of its leader, Mustafa Zibri, also known as Abu Ali Mustafa, in a targeted Israeli missile attack on his office.

Under Israeli pressure, Arafat arrested the leader of the PFLP, Ahmed Saadat, last month, but three other suspects remained at large.

At about 2 a.m. (midnight GMT) Thursday, Palestinian security forces stormed the suspects' hideout of the three in the West Bank city of Nablus, said Dweikat.

Dweikat identified the three men in detention as Ahed Abu Gholmi, Basel Asmar and Hamdi Koran. Abu Gholmi is the West Bank leader of the PFLP's military wing, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, and is suspected of having planned Zeevi's killing. Asmar and Koran are suspected of having carried out the killing.