Jerusalem, April 17
At least six persons were killed and some 35 wounded, many of them seriously, when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a busy area of Israel's commercial capital Tel Aviv today, the police said.

The attack, next to a fast food restaurant in southern Tel Aviv, came at the height of holiday travel during the week-long Jewish Passover holiday and was the first suicide bombing in Israel since the radical Hamas group took over the reins of the Palestinian government.

The Islamic Jihad and the Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades both claimed responsibility for the attack, media reports said.

All the injured had been transferred to Beilinson and Ichilov hospitals in the city, Yeruham Mandola, spokesman for the Magen David Adom rescue agency, said.

Some 32 persons were injured in a previous bombing at the same fast food joint in January, which carried out by Islamic Jihad.

The restaurant is located in the bustling Neve Shaanan neighbourhood near Tel Aviv's old central bus station.

"The attack looks similar to the one at the same eating joint that took place in January," Mandola said.

The attack came just two hours before a special session of Knesset to inaugurate the new Israeli Parliament elected last month.

Palestinians sources reported that the Israeli defence forces had entered the West Bank city of Nablus in large numbers in response to the terror attack. Hamas and other groups have been observing a ceasefire with Israel for more than a year. Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for all six of the previous suicide attacks inside Israel since the truce was announced.

The leader of Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Shallah, had said yesterday that the militant group was making "nonstop efforts" to infiltrate suicide bombers from the West Bank into Israel. Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas has condemned the suicide bombing and urged the international community to "intervene" to end the "serious deterioration" in the region.

"President Abbas condemns this terrorist attack at the old bus station in Tel Aviv which has caused death and injuries among Israeli civilians," a statement from Abbas's office said.

Israel has accused the Palestinian Authority (PA) led by Hamas of being responsible for the attack.

"This Palestinian Authority, which has clearly defined itself as a terrorist entity, has tried to instigate terrorist support more than the previous one did, and we will act accordingly," a spokesman for interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Ra'anan Gissin said.

A Hamas spokesman in response told the local media that it was "a natural result of the continued Israeli crimes against our people."

"The Israeli occupation bears responsibility for the continuation of its aggression. Our people are in a state of self-defence and they have every right to use all means to defend themselves," the spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, said.

Security sources said they suspected that the attack might have been carried out by a woman. They were still in search of a vehicle that was sighted fleeing from the site after the incident. — PTI

Colombo, April 17
A Tamil Tiger child soldier has been killed in a Claymore mine blast in northern Sri Lanka, the UN Agency for children said today.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said it deplored the death of a 17-year-old fighter of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a mine attack last week in the northern district of Vavuniya and asked the guerrillas to demobilise all child soldiers.

“This incident underlines the risks children are exposed to when used in direct combat or in support roles such as delivery of supplies,” UNICEF said in a statement.

“Recruitment of children is a direct violation of their right to protection from violence. UNICEF calls on the LTTE to immediately release all under-age recruits within its ranks and to cease recruitment of children.” At least 63 persons, mostly security personnel, have been killed in a spate of bomb attacks in the past week in Sri Lanka, in the latest upsurge of violence linked to the decades-old Tamil separatist conflict. — AFP 

Islamabad, April 17
The talks between Pakistan and India on resolving the stalemate over the Wullar Barrage in Jammu and Kashmir scheduled to be held tomorrow have been deferred, Online news agency reported.

Sources in the foreign office said the two-day talks were postponed as Indian Secretary for Water and Power J. Hari Narayan, who was to lead his side at the talks, conveyed his inability to attend due to his hectic schedule. New dates will be announced later, the sources said.

The Wullar Barrage, which is referred to as Tulbul navigation project by India, being built in Jammu and Kashmir was suspended by New Delhi nearly two decades ago as Islamabad raised objections to its construction. Talks held last year as part of the third round of composite dialogue had ended on an inconclusive note with both sides reiterating their positions about finding a solution consistent with the provisions of the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960.

Pakistan says construction of the Wullar Barrage on the Jhelum river by India violates the Indus treaty and would lead to a loss of precious irrigation water on its territory.

India is insisting on the revival of the project, suspended in 1987. The project was conceived in the 1980s and work began in 1984.

New Delhi maintains that the suspension of work is harming the interests of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and also depriving the people of Pakistan of irrigation and power benefits that may come to them from regulated water releases from the Wullar lake. — IANS

Khar, April 17
Pakistan has deployed regular army and Frontier Corps personnel along the unfrequented routes leading to Afghanistan’s Kunar province from here and sealed the border.

Sources said the step had been taken to check infiltration of terrorists into the agency from across the border.

The sources said the Mamond tribes had assured the authorities of full cooperation in setting up a checkpoint in the border areas.

The political administration had convened a meeting of Mamond tribal elders and took them into confidence over the deployment of army and Frontier Corps personnel in the border areas.

Baghdad, April 17
Experts confirmed the authenticity of Saddam Hussein’s signature on documents connected to a crackdown on Shiites in the 1980s, prosecutors said today in a new session of the trial of the former Iraqi leader and seven co-defendants.

The report from handwriting experts said a signature on a document approving rewards for intelligence agents involved in the crackdown was Saddam’s, prosecutors said, reading from the report.

In an earlier session, Saddam had refused to confirm or deny his signature. Some of his co-defendants had said their alleged signatures on other documents were forgeries.

Saddam and the seven former members of his regime are on trial for the deaths of 148 Shiites and the imprisonment and torture of others during the crackdown launched after a 1982 assassination attempt against the former Iraqi leader in the Shiite town of Dujail. They face possible execution by hanging if convicted.

Dressed in a black suit and white shirt, Saddam appeared in court today along with his co-defendants. Meanwhile the trial of Saddam Hussein and seven co-accused was adjourned until Wednesday, the Judge said today.

Chief Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman said experts needed more time to examine Saddam’s handwriting that prosecutors say link him to the killing of 148 Shi’ite men and teenagers in the 1980s. — Agencies

Geneva, April 17
Chad's President has promised the United Nations that refugees from Sudan's Darfur region will not be forcibly returned, the global body's refugee chief said today.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said he had spoken last night with President Idriss Deby, who had given assurances that his country would abide by international refugee law and not force them to return.

"President Deby expressed his concern about the difficulties involved in providing security both to the refugees and to the humanitarian organisations that are helping them," Guterres said.

Deby said last week that Chad was severing relations with neighbouring Sudan, and threatened to expel 2,00,000 Sudanese refugees if the international community did not do more to stop what he claimed were Sudanese-backed rebels from destabilising his government before the May 3 presidential election. — AP

Assiut (Egypt), April 17
The police detained 43 students at Assiut University in southern Egypt for suspected membership in the banned Muslim Brotherhood, a police official and group members said.

Assiut Brotherhood leader Mahmoud Hussein said the arrests were part of the authorities’ “uninterrupted campaign of detentions.”

The roundups yesterday brings to almost a 100 the number of the brotherhood who were detained since the beginning of March.

Mohammed Osama, a brotherhood spokesman at its Cairo headquarters, and a Cairo police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed yesterday’s arrests. Charges have not yet been filed.

A brotherhood student representative at Assiut University, who refused to give his name fearing police reprisal, said security men stormed the students apartments in three residential areas at dawn and confiscated books and papers. Assiut, is 320 km south of Cairo. — AP