Arafat hits out at US condemnation

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has attacked US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice for condemning his Authority.

He says she has no right to dictate to Palestinians how their future state should look.

Arafat spoke after a Palestinian blew himself up in Israeli territory near the West Bank.

Israeli officials, who have begun building a controversial electronic fence to keep suicide bombers out, said planning would begin this month to extend the fence the length of the West Bank.

Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said he believed the bomber was one of five assailants Israeli security forces have been searching for in recent days.

Ben-Eliezer has said Israel had intelligence information that five Palestinian suicide bombers were trying to infiltrate into Israel.

Arafat has been under US and Israeli pressure to curb attacks on Israel, and both nations have begun urging reforms in the Palestinian Authority and new elections. Israel wants Arafat sidelined.

The US has been openly critical of the Palestinian leader, but has stopped short of demanding he be replaced.

Rice is reported as saying a Palestinian state should not be based on Arafat's Palestinian Authority, which she said is "corrupt and cavorts with terror."

Asked about the Rice comment, Arafat said that "she does not have the right to put or impose orders on us about what to do or not to do. We are doing what we see as good for our people and we do not accept any orders from anyone," Arafat said while touring West Bank schools.