Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, meanwhile, said the arrest was a direct assault on the Palestinian people and the PLO which is headed by Yasser Arafat and includes Abbas' Palestine Liberation Front (PLF).

"We ask the US administration for the immediate release of Abu Abbas and for it to respect the 1995 interim agreement between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel ... and signed by (former) US president Bill Clinton," senior Palestinian official Saeb Erakat told AFP.

He pointed to one of its clauses that says PLO members can not be arrested or tried for acts committed before September 1993, when the first Palestinian autonomy accords were signed.

The interim peace accord, signed in Washington on September 28, 1995, is however a bilateral accord which does not set out any US specific commitment to immunity for acts against US citizens.

The United States was a co-signatory in the capacity of witness, together with Russia, Egypt, the European Union and Norway.

Erakat also said Abbas, who has lived most his life in exile, had "visited the West Bank and Gaza Strip several times with Israel's coordination and for this reason we call on the US administration to respect this agreement and liberate Abu Abbas straight away."

On the street of the Palestinian territories, the arrest was seen as another blow against the Palestinian people.

Yacub Khalil, a 37-year-old civil servant in Gaza City, said "the arrest of Abu Abbas by US forces is not suprising because they want to link Iraq with international terrorism".

Mohammed Abu Ali, a 23-year-old university student in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, said "the arrest of Abu Abbas in an assault on the Palestinian people, it shows the US desire to wipe out the Palestinian leadership and draw a new map of the Middle East."

In Nablus, also in the northern West Bank, Jaber Abdelkarim, a 20-year-old university student said "Abu Abbas is the head of the PLF, which is part of the PLO. His arrest is a blow to the PLO which is recognized by the United States."

"The United States wishes it could arrest every Palestinian leader in the resistance just to guarantee Israel's security," said Jawad Abu Salem, 37, an unemployed man in Nablus.

Abu Abbas masterminded the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship in 1985 in which an elderly, wheelchair-bound American tourist, Leon Klinghoffer, was murdered and thrown into the Mediterranean.

He was sentenced in absentia in Italy to five life terms for the attack on the Italian liner. Rome said Wednesday it would seek his extradition, though it was unsure where to address the demand.

The fugitive leader of the PLF was living in Iraq under the protection of now toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

US marines reported the discovery of bomb-making equipment last week at what was described as a training camp in Iraq operated by a faction of the PLF, which is on US and EU lists of terrorist organisations.

A 1990 attack by his group on a seaside hotel in Tel Aviv prompted the first Bush administration to sever contacts with the PLO. Contacts were resumed with the 1993 Oslo accords.

In April 1996, Abu Abbas signed up to the PLO charter which had dropped calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and from then on was allowed by Israel to visit the Palestinian territories for meetings of the Palestine National Council, the PLO's parliament in exile.

He said at the time that the Achille Lauro hijacking was "part of the past" and a "mistake".

Having jumped on the peace camp bandwagon, he said on several occasions he wanted peace, although in his most recent statements to the media in October 2000, at the start of the Palestinian uprising, he pledged to resume attacks on Israel.

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SPACE.WIRE