Hamas names suspect in bomb attack on PM

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Hamas on Wednesday named a fugitive suspect in a bomb attack on Palestinian prime minister Rami Hamdallah, two days after the Islamist movement itself was accused of the Gaza attack.

Hamdallah was unhurt by the roadside blast that struck his convoy on March 13, in what Palestinian officials have called an assassination attempt as he entered the Hamas-run strip on a rare visit.

The interior ministry in Gaza on Wednesday said it was searching for Anas abu Koussa, born in 1993, describing him as the lead suspect.

It did not give a possible motive for the attack on Hamdallah, head of government in president Mahmud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.

A Hamas security source said investigators had arrested and were questioning three people, including two members of the PA-run intelligence services.

Another security source said he believed radical Salafist Muslims had planted the bomb, which lightly injured six people.

Hamas and the West Bank-based PA have been bitter rivals for a decade since the Islamists seized control of Gaza.

The bomb appears to have brought to an end hopes for an already floundering reconciliation deal between Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah party, which dominates the PA.

O n Monday, Abbas accused Hamas of being behind the blast and said he would take new measures in response, without specific details. — AFP