Three arrested over Gaza blast
Palestinian police have reportedly arrested three men in connection with an explosion that left three American security guards dead on Wednesday.
The blast hit a US diplomatic convoy travelling through the Gaza strip, killing three security guards in an armoured jeep and injuring another.
Officials claimed that the three suspects, seized shortly after the bombing, were members of the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella militant splinter group.
A spokesman for the group confirmed the men arrested were members but again denied that it had any involvement in the bombing.
Washington plans to send an FBI investigation team to the Middle East. US president George W Bush strongly condemned the attack, the first on American personnel in Palestinian territory.
“I condemn in the strongest terms the vicious act of terrorism directed against Americans in Gaza today.”
He said the Palestinian authorities should have acted long ago “to fight terror in all its forms”.
The US blames the Palestinian Authority for security lapses leading to the explosion and is placing increased pressure on Palestinian leaders to crack down heavily on militants.
The Palestinian Resistance Committees is made up mainly of former members of the Islamic militant group Hamas and ex-members of president Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement and has carried out a number of attacks during the three-year Palestinian uprising.
Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia pledged co-operation and Palestinian president Yasser Arafat announced that he had ordered an investigation into the incident.
The explosion appears to have been caused by a roadside bomb, believed to have been detonated by remote control, which hit a jeep travelling in the convoy and left a deep crater in the road near the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
