Power struggle that lies behind Arafat's reluctance to crack down on killers

Why Fatah leader decries acts of 'terror' but fails to act.

Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority has made only a token effort to limit the financial gains for the suicide bombers by stopping pension payments to the families of bombers on its payroll.

The PA is by far the main employer in the West Bank and Gaza. But it has not tried to stop Saddam Hussein from bankrolling the families of the bombers, and it has put no curbs on the funerals, or the poster industry commemorating the bombers.

Israel's response to each suicide bombing is highly ritualised. Almost always, it accuses Mr Arafat of responsibility, saying he has turned a blind eye to Palestinian militant groups operating in towns and refugee camps nominally under his control.

Despite intense pressure from Israel and America to halt the bombings, Mr Arafat has balked at a widescale crackdown. The stated reason for his reluctance is the destruction of his security apparatus in repeated attacks on troops and police stations by the Israeli army.

But Palestinian analysts believe the real reason is that Mr Arafat knows that a crackdown could lead to civil war. He is desperate to avoid an open confrontation with Hamas and Islamic Jihad after attempts to arrest their activists last autumn led to angry riots in Gaza City.

He also wants to preserve the primacy of Fatah, as do the movement's grassroots leaders. Militant commanders from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades admit they felt compelled to undertake suicide missions for fear of losing their influence over a young, radicalised generation of Palestinians who would otherwise have gravitated towards Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

There is no evidence connecting Mr Arafat directly to any of the suicide attacks launched by the Al-Aqsa brigades from the beginning of this year, but there is also no sign that he has heeded demands from Washington to disband the militias. Palestinians say this is because Mr Arafat recognises he does not have the power to enforce such a decree. But he does control the purse strings of the Palestinian Authority and many Al-Aqsa commanders are on his payroll.

During the past 20 months Mr Arafat has made only sporadic arrests of Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists - often targeting low-level operatives or office workers. His police have also been lax about keeping them in jail and under guard, allowing the militants to continue plotting even when in custody.

The official excuse is that the PA cannot keep people in jail when these have been bombed by Israeli F-16s and helicopter gunships, and it cannot bring them to trial when Israel's siege of West Bank towns has paralysed the administration.

In May Mr Arafat for the first time referred to suicide bombings inside Israel as "terror", and the governing body of his Fatah movement said they were harmful to Palestinian interests.

"Military attacks inside the 'green line' [Israel] must stop because they reflect negatively on the image of our national struggle," the Fatah Revolutionary Council said, but the declaration was conditional on Israel stopping its offensives.