Israel arrests

Israeli security services are fighting on two fronts to prevent an outbreak of violence by Jewish and Muslim extremists.

Two Jewish fanatics, Avigdor Eskin and Damian Pakovitch, have been remanded in custody charged with plotting to throw a pig's head among Muslims praying at Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque, the third-holiest shrine in Islam, during the fast month of Ramaddan, which begins later this week.

A previous incident, in which a poster depicting Mohammed as a pig was distributed in Hebron, provoked riots. Eskin is alleged to have been behind that insult, too.

At the same time Israel's Shin Bet internal security service has arrested the brother-in-law of Ahmed Awdallah, a Hamas bombmaker, and interrogated him to discover where Awdallah is hiding.