Sharon: Iranian-Palestinian ties threaten Israel

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called Iran the "center of world terror" and said Tuesday a recently captured arms shipment showed that Iran and the Palestinians were collaborating to strike at Israel.\nIsrael said it would soon release documents that show the Palestinian Authority was responsible for the 50 tons of weapons captured by Israeli commandos last Thursday on a cargo ship in the Red Sea. "We have all the evidence and it will unfold, and we will present it soon," Sharon adviser Daniel Ayalon said.\nThe Palestinian Authority insists it had nothing to do with the arms shipment and said its senior security officials would question those accused by Israel of trying to smuggle the weapons.\nWhile Mideast violence has dropped sharply since Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Dec. 16 speech calling for an end to attacks against Israel, the dispute over the weapons-laden ship has kept the two sides exchanging heated words.\nThe weapons included 62 Katyusha rockets that could reach Israeli cities from Palestinian areas in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.\nIn Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher described as "credible" the Israeli allegations that the Palestinians were trying to smuggle the weapons.\n"We have some of the evidence," Boucher said, adding that U.S. diplomats had examined a number of the weapons. "The quantity and quality of these weapons are of serious concern."\nSharon said that if the Palestinians had obtained the weapons, it would have put the country "in an impossible situation where all of Israel becomes hostage to Yasser Arafat."\nA senior Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel believed Iran sold the weapons to the Palestinians for $10 million -- far below their actual worth -- in hopes it would allow Iran to threaten Israel by proxy.\nAt a meeting Sunday, Israel demanded the Palestinian Authority punish those involved in the shipment. U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni was present at the meeting, the Israeli military official said.\nIsrael has accused Arafat himself of direct involvement in the arms shipment, saying an operation of this magnitude, involving millions of dollars worth of rockets, rifles and anti-tank missiles, could not have taken place without the approval of Arafat, head of the Palestinian Authority.\n"The great danger (to Israel) are those relations that were developed between the Palestinian Authority and Iran," Sharon told some 200 visiting American Jewish leaders. "Iran at the present time is the center of world terror."\nIran has denied involvement with the weapons shipment. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, speaking Monday on Iranian television, said Israel was making the allegations to "intensify a crackdown on the Palestinian intefadeh," or uprising.\nThe Palestinian Authority has acknowledged that the Palestinian captain of the weapons ship, the Karine A, is in its naval unit, but has denied links to the shipment.\n"The Palestinian Authority is not interested and does not want any form of escalation in this situation," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told a news conference.\nBut Palestinian naval captain Omar Akawi said in prison interviews Monday that he picked up the weapons off the coast of Iran and received his instructions from Adel Awadallah, also known as Adel Mughrabi and identified by Israel as a major weapons buyer in the Palestinian Authority.\nAsked about the statements by the ship captain, Abed Rabbo said, "there are so many holes and loopholes in what he declared."\nSharon said that Israel had kept the Americans fully informed.\n"They know exactly that millions and millions of dollars were spent by the Palestinian Authority and things like that are not done without the direct approval of Arafat," Sharon said.\nThe United States has for years cited Iran as a sponsor of international terrorism. But during the current U.S. military campaign, the United States and Iran have shared an interest in seeing the destruction of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and have managed to avoid any direct confrontations.\nDespite distrust heightened by the smuggling allegations, security officials from both sides were still holding meetings in the hopes of working out a truce to end 15 months of violence. The Israeli security source said the sides promised Zinni to try to reach a detailed document on implementing a full truce before Zinni returns Jan. 18.\nIsrael says the Palestinians purchased the Karine A last year in order to smuggle the weapons.\nLloyd's Register, which tracks ship ownership worldwide, said the Karine A was sold last Aug. 31 by the Lebanese company Diana K to an unknown buyer. The ship is now registered in Tonga, but the owner is not available, according to Chris Owens, the registrar of ships for Lloyd's.