The Palestinian Authority has arrested at least 12 of its own security men as part of its efforts to crack down on anti-Israeli militants, a senior Palestinian security official said on Wednesday.
He said the men, from the southern Gaza Strip, had been arrested since Monday, the day after Palestinian President Yasser Arafat called for militants to stop suicide bombings and armed attacks on Israelis.
"They were arrested for violating the ceasefire orders," he told Reuters. The detainees, who hold security posts in the Palestinian Authority forces, also belong to a militant wing of Arafat's Fatah movement, a Palestinian security source said.
Arafat, under intense international pressure to act after a wave of suicide bombings in Israel, outlawed the military wings of Hamas and other groups and arrested dozens of militants.
Palestinian forces closed down a Gaza workshop used to manufacture mortar bombs and detained three of its owners, security sources said. On Tuesday the Authority closed six offices in Gaza of the militant Islamic group Hamas.
Israel has accused Arafat of going after low-level activists rather than ringleaders of attacks against Israelis during 15 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence in which more than 1,000 people have been killed.
An Israeli Defence Ministry spokesman said the detainees "must be incarcerated, interrogated to gain information with which to thwart terrorist acts, and then brought to justice".
Palestinian militants have vowed to defy Arafat's ceasefire call.
(China Daily December 20, 2001)
