Embassies tighten security as Hamas threatens 'US interests'
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Jerusalem
United States embassies are stepping up security precautions to counter threatened retaliation for the detention in New York of Mousa Abu Marzuk, the head of the Hamas political bureau.
American citizens living or travelling in the Middle East are also being advised not to expose themselves to danger from Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement responsible for the suicide bombing which killed six Israelis on a Tel Aviv bus last week, or its fundamentalist allies abroad.
Mr Abu Marzuk was stopped last Thursday as he tried to enter the US, where he had lived for most of the past 14 years on a permanent resident's visa. Legal proceedings have begun for his deportation. Israel is seeking his extradition on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, manslaughter and grievous bodily harm. It accuses him of setting policy for terrorist attacks, transmitting orders to gunmen in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and smuggling in hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy arms.
Hamas threats have become more explicit. Ghazi Hamad, editor of the movement's weekly newspaper, Al Watan, said in Gaza this week that if Mr Abu Marzuk were imprisoned in Israel, "that would compel Hamas to take action against Israeli and American interests".
Mr Hamad recalled that after Israel arrested Hamas's founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, in 1989 Hamas had kidnapped Israeli soldiers. "I believe," he warned, "it would carry out similar attacks on American targets."
Washington shares Israeli scepticism about the distinction between Hamas's military and political wings.
n Israeli troops dragged Jewish settlers off a West Bank hilltop for the third day yesterday, and the Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, accused the protesters of trying to divide the nation, AP reports. "We are at the beginning of a period where an attempt will be made to violate law and order ... and set up fictitious settlements," Mr Rabin said. "We will enforce the law without hesitation."
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