Bush says Middle East road map still stands

10.45am

UPDATE - President George W. Bush has vowed to push ahead with the Middle East peace "road map" despite a wave of Palestinian bombings but admitted the path ahead would be a bumpy one.

"The road map still stands," Bush said. "The vision of two states existing side by side is a real vision, and one that I will work toward."

In the latest incident a Palestinian suicide bomber struck an Israeli shopping mall this morning, killing three people.


The US-backed peace plan, which calls for a Palestinian state as early as 2005, has failed to inspire much momentum thus far. At a summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, the two sides failed to reconcile a list of conflicting demands for ending 31 months of fighting.

"We're still on the road to peace," Bush told a joint news conference with Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. "It's just going to be a bumpy road. And I'm not going to get off the road until we achieve the vision."

A new wave of Palestinian bombings led Sharon to cancel a US visit, where Bush had planned to insist that Israel must assume its responsibilities under the road map just as he expected the Palestinians to improve security.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush understood and respected Sharon's decision to cancel his trip, and said Bush looked forward to welcoming Sharon "at the first opportunity."

Fleischer said a series of actions need to take place "beginning with unequivocal steps by the Palestinians to combat terror and the willingness of the Israelis to work with the Palestinians to achieve the political ends of the road map."

The road map, unveiled by Bush on April 30, is also backed by the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

Bush said he still had confidence in Abbas' ability to crack down on militant groups like Hamas responsible for the attacks. He said Abbas will need some help, particularly from those countries that can crack down on the money flow to Hamas. He mentioned countries in the region as well as Europe but did not single out any specific countries.

"What's more important than process is results, and that we've got to work together to cut off the funding and the support and activity of the terrorist killers who can't stand peace. Europe must work with us to do everything we can to discourage the terrorist activities that derail a process toward peace," Bush said.

Bush is the latest president to try his hand at resolving the Middle East situation, which bedevilled his predecessors. But so far the US effort, coming on the heels of the Iraq war, which inflamed anti-American sentiment in the region, has been relatively futile.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Israel and the Palestinian authorities more than a week ago and tried to persuade the two sides to start work on the first phase of the road map.

Meanwhile forensics experts identified a body found off a beach in Israel as that of a British would-be suicide bomber who had survived an attack that killed three people in Tel Aviv, police said.

Initial indications were that Omar Sharif, 27, had drowned. But the possibility that accomplices in Israel killed him to prevent his capture has not been ruled out, according to security sources.

Police said Sharif had planned to carry out a suicide bombing at the same time as Asif Hanif, a fellow Briton of Pakistani descent who blew himself up at Mike's Place nightclub on the Mediterranean coast. Their passports were found nearby.

Hanif, 21, went through with the attack on April 30 but Sharif fled after failing to detonate his bomb. Witnesses said he ran south toward Jaffa port, scuffling with bystanders.

Police said Sharif's mangled and decomposed body was found floating 500m off the coast on May 12.

"It looks as though he took to sea in an act of desperation - though where he hoped to get by swimming is unclear," a source said.

"Could be that whoever helped him and Hanif get to Tel Aviv did not want him around to be interrogated by us."

The attack was the first of its kind by foreigners sympathetic to the 31-month-old Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

The Islamic group Hamas and an offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction jointly claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Israel said the two Britons crossed Israel from Jordan last month and travelled to Gaza, where they met up with their Hamas handlers. They then smuggled their bombs back into Israel. According to security sources, they used fine plastic explosive made to look like the pages in a Koran, Islam's holy book.

Security forces had launched a manhunt for Sharif, scouring the coastline as well as areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, where he might try to blend in. Special attention was paid to Jaffa and other Israeli Arab communities, some of whose residents have helped Palestinian militants in the past.

On Monday, British security agents delivered DNA samples from Sharif's relatives to use in Sharif's autopsy, Israeli sources said. British officials did not immediately confirm the report.

Three of Sharif's relatives who were arrested in Britain following the Mike's Place bombing appeared in court on Monday.

His wife, 27-year-old Tahira Tabassum, brother Zahid Sharif, 36, and sister Parveef Sharif, 35, appeared at London's Old Bailey accused of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism.

Parveef Sharif also faces the more serious charge of aiding, abetting, counselling and procuring acts of terrorism overseas. She has been ordered to remain in custody while the other two defendants have been granted bail.

Israel's chief of military staff, Lieutenant-General Moshe Yaalon, told Army Radio that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda movement had put Hanif and Sharif in touch with Hamas in Gaza. Palestinian officials have denied any connection to al Qaeda.

- REUTERS



AFULA, Israel -


In Washington, US President George W Bush said that despite the latest bombings he would persevere with the plan for a Palestinian state co-existing alongside Israel by 2005.

The bomber blew up after being confronted by a guard at the entrance to the mall in the northern town of Afula, witnesses said. "There is no doubt our methods of security...prevented a far bigger attack," said regional police chief Yakov Borovsky.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, and the militant Islamic Jihad group jointly claimed responsibility for the attack, naming the bomber as a woman student, 19, from the northern West Bank.

Police initially described the bomber as a man but then backed off, saying the bodies were not conclusively identified.

The guard and bomber were among the dead and 60 people were wounded in what witnesses described as a "huge explosion".

It shattered and warped the doors at the covered mall entrance. A Hebrew sign above them bid shoppers: Welcome.

A leader of Islamic Jihad's kindred group Hamas, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, said an independence fight launched 31 months ago in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, would continue without respite.

Earlier on Monday, a suicide bomber on a bicycle wounded three Israeli soldiers near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, a day after a bomber disguised as a religious Jew killed seven bus passengers in Jerusalem.

There have been six suicide attacks since reformist Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas took office three weeks ago, compared with five in the six months beforehand, suggesting a concerted militant campaign to undermine his diplomatic agenda.

After the Jerusalem bombing, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon postponed a visit to Washington for talks with Bush on the "road map" and ordered Palestinian areas sealed off, reimposing a military clampdown eased last week at the request of the United States.

Bush told reporters: "I've got confidence we can move the peace process forward. The road map still stands...We're still on the road to peace. It's just going to be a bumpy road and I'm not going to get off the road until we achieve the vision."

Israel blamed Arafat for the latest attack. "We are convinced that first and foremost Arafat is the factor preventing this (peace) process from taking off," Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz told reporters.

Arafat has denied Israeli and US accusations of inciting militants and told Reuters after hearing of the Afula bombing: "We completely condemn these activities against civilians."

Mofaz told a security symposium earlier on Monday Israel would consider expelling Arafat if he stymied Abbas' professed intention to rein in militants and implement reforms for peace.

US and Israeli officials place big hope in Abbas, but he was installed under mediators' pressure, lacks street popularity and has tussled with Arafat in trying to consolidate his power.

Abbas met Sharon on Saturday for the highest-level Israeli-Palestinian encounter in more than two years but it was eclipsed by weekend bombings that killed eight Israelis.

- REUTERS