JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel on Sunday accused militants from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement of plotting to ambush Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's convoy in the West Bank two months ago.
Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel's domestic Shin Beth security service, told the Israeli cabinet that "Fatah terrorists" had plotted to attack Olmert's convoy during an August 6 visit to the West Bank town of Jericho.
"The terror plot was thwarted and the meeting was held as planned," Diskin said, a senior government official present at the meeting told AFP.
But Israeli officials later downplayed the threat faced by Olmert, with Public Security Minister Avi Dichter saying that the alleged plotters were arrested before the meeting.
"Because these people had already been arrested when he went to the meeting, he was not in danger. Even before, it was not the kind of plan that could have endangered him," he told army radio.
News of the plot came shortly before Olmert embarked on a trip to France and Britain to discuss the standoff over Iran's nuclear drive and preparations for an Israeli-Palestinian peace conference expected to be held next month in the United States.
"We feel great displeasure over this issue and we will not ignore it. But I do not have any intention to stop the negotiation efforts with the Palestinians," Olmert told reporters before his departure.
"What bothered us was the unacceptable way they dealt with the suspects. This is part of a behaviour pattern that has to change."
A senior security official speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity said the operation -- envisioned as a shooting ambush -- was planned by a five-person cell, including members of security forces loyal to Abbas.
"Three of them were arrested by Palestinian security services and released on September 26. The other two were arrested by Israeli security forces in an operation in Jericho," the official said.
"The members of the cell were members of the Palestinian security forces, including Force 17," an elite force under the direct authority of Abbas, the official added.
Palestinian security forces have since arrested two of the suspects again, and the third is in Israeli custody, a Palestinian security official said.
Earlier, a spokesman for the Palestinian interior ministry denied there was ever a real plot, insisting that the three suspects had merely talked about targeting the convoy.
"We received information that there was a cell forming in Jericho to carry out subversive operations" and arrested three suspects, the spokesman told AFP.
"We released the three suspects on September 25 after our investigation revealed that the group had no weapons or plans or explosives.
"All that we established was that there was talk among those young men -- that did not constitute a plan -- to attack Olmert's convoy with a Molotov cocktail, but nothing came of those talks."
But Dichter insisted that while the plot was foiled well in advance of the prime minister's trip, those who intended to carry it out were "no band of youngsters" but trained, armed fighters.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is acting prime minister in Olmert's absence, said her government had informed both US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Abbas about the plot.
"We are taking this planned attack very seriously and are strongly protesting. We have informed Rice and the Palestinians," Livni said, according to Ynetnews.
Olmert and Abbas have been trying to cobble together a joint declaration ahead of the US-sponsored conference to revive a peace process that has been dormant since the eruption of a Palestinian uprising in 2000.
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