Israeli Forces Return to Tulkarm

Israeli tanks and armored vehicles rolled back into Tulkarm early on Tuesday a week after withdrawing from the West Bank city to carry out what Israeli military sources called a limited operation to arrest terrorists.

Reports quoted Palestinian witnesses as saying that tanks and armored personnel carriers, flanked by helicopter gunships, entered Tulkarm from several directions.

By around 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) the Israeli troops had taken complete control of the town, apparently without meeting any resistance, the witnesses said.

There was no immediate reports of fighting in the military incursion, which happened at a time when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has been on a peace mission in the Middle East.

An Israeli military source reportedly confirmed the operation, but saying: "This is not a reoccupation. It is a limited operation to search for terrorists."

Israeli forces pulled out of Tulkarm and another West Bank city of Qalqilya a week ago under mounting U.S. and international pressure to begin a withdrawal from Palestinian areas captured in an military offensive. The offensive was started on March 29 in retaliation of several suicide bombings in Israel.

(Xinhua News Agency April 16, 2002)