A beleaguered Yasser Arafat vowed in a televised speech Wednesday to unleash his security services to prevent terrorist attacks, hours after the Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 15 Israelis.
"I gave my orders and directions to all the Palestinian security forces to confront and prevent all terror attacks against Israeli civilians from any Palestinian side or parties," Arafat said on Palestinian TV.
President Bush called Arafat's statement against terrorism an "incredibly positive sign," and he urged Israel to consider the consequences of its response to the suicide attack.
"You've got to want peace to achieve peace," Bush said in Washington, just before meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah II.
In a speech broadcast in Arabic across the Arab world, Arafat promised to take action against Palestinian militants ¡ª but qualified his statements by insisting his security forces needed help.
"I call on the U.S. government, President Bush and the international community to provide the support and needed immunity for the Palestinian security forces, whose infrastructure has been destroyed by the Israeli occupation, so that they can carry out and implement their orders ... to completely stop any terror attempt targeting Israeli civilians or Palestinian civilians, and to prevent using terror as a political way to achieve their goals," Arafat said.
Bush said Tuesday he would send CIA Director George Tenet to help build a Palestinian security force to fight terrorism.
(Xinhua News Agency May 9, 2002)
