It may have been a warning to Arafat not to dare sign any new agreements, as has been rumored in the past few days he was planning to do tomorrow in fact. It may have been another Israeli assassination - though usually they don't take such risks and use such methods, strongly preferring instead to use high-technology and long-distance means. As the Israelis approach the election of a war criminal to be their Prime Minister, the Palestinians may be approaching a civil war, a goal the Israelis have also pursued for some time. Meanwhile, in Baghdad, Saddam uses the 10th anniversary of the Gulf War to once again declare "victory".

Hooded Men Kill Director of Palestinian TV in Gaza

GAZA (Reuters -17 Jan) - Three hooded men Wednesday shot dead the head of the official Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) in Gaza, Palestinian security sources said.

They said the men shot Hisham Mikki, 54, in the head and in the heart while he was in a Gaza hotel. The perpetrators fled. Medical sources said he arrived at the Shifa hospital in Gaza dead. It was unclear whether the killing was criminal or an assassination for nationalist reasons.

The PBC was set up in 1994 when the Palestinian Authority was formed and Israel handed over parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Jericho to Palestinian rule.

SADDAM MARKS GULF WAR WITH VICTORY PLEDGE

BAGHDAD (Reuters - 17 January) - President Saddam Hussein said on the 10th anniversary of the Gulf War over Kuwait on Wednesday that Iraq would emerge victorious in its struggle against the United States.

In a speech charged with rhetoric, the Iraqi leader said the war that erupted on January 17, 1991, was a confrontation between good and evil that continues until this day.

"Iraq has triumphed over the enemies of the (Arab) nation and over its enemies. It will triumph in all the remaining rounds with the help of God because it has achieved its triumph inside its soul, its conscience, its heart and its mind," the Iraqi leader said in a taped televised address to the nation. The 20-minute speech was broadcast on Iraqi stations and a number of Arab satellite channels.

"On a day like this day 10 years ago, evil and all those who made Satan their protector lined up in one place, facing those who represented the will to defend right against falsehood and who had God as their protector," he said.

"The missiles and bombs of aggression hit everything material and suitable as target for their weapons. Much dear blood of the dear ones was shed...," he said.

He identified the evildoers as the western powers in the coalition, led by the United States, that drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait and inflicted devastation on Iraq.

But Saddam made no mention of Kuwait or Arab countries that took part in the war against Iraq.

"How can I give names (of Arab coalition members) and count? How can I say and open the wounds?"

AMERICANS JOIN BAGHDAD RALLY

Earlier in the day, American peace activists had joined hundreds of Iraqi and Arab demonstrators at a rally to mark the occasion outside the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.

The event began shortly after midnight, around the same time a U.S.-led coalition launched Operation Desert Storm to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait a decade ago.

Hours later, church bells tolled as mosque loudspeakers started broadcasting prayers in memory of the thousands of Iraqis killed in the war.

At the rally, Iraqis and Arabs burned the American and British flags amid chants of "down, down U.S.A., down, down British crown." The crowd hoisted pictures of Saddam and Iraqi, Lebanese and Palestinian flags.

A score of Americans from the International Action Centre, opposed to U.N. sanctions on Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait, were at the rally carrying placards reading "Road to peace, U.S. out of the Middle East." '

Former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsey Clark, a long-time opponent of sanctions against Iraq, was at the rally. He told journalists that the war was tantamount to a "genocide and has to be remembered and has to be prevented to happen again."

Michel Wolff, a 36-year-old truck driver from San Diego, told Reuters: "We have been to hospitals and schools and saw first-hand the misery caused by the sanctions."

Wolff said he understood the anti-American feelings in the crowd but hoped that Iraqis would distinguish between the American government and the American people.

"I don't blame them. After what the U.S. government has done to them, their feelings are normal," he said.

IRAQ KEEPS EYE ON U.S.

On the eve of the anniversary, a senior Iraqi official said Baghdad was willing to reciprocate any positive move toward it by the new U.S. administration.

Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, who represented Iraq in failed last-minute negotiations to avert the war, also warned that Baghdad would fight back if the United States resumed what he called its anti-Iraq policy under President-elect George W. Bush, whose father was the U.S. president during the Gulf War.

Aziz, speaking at a news conference on Tuesday night, defended Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, which triggered the war that Iraq trumpeted as "Mother of all Battles."

But he distanced his government from a call by Saddam's eldest son Uday to include the emirate's territory in an Iraqi map on the emblem of the national parliament.

"Iraq was the victim of a conspiracy against its sovereignty, national interest and Kuwait was part and parcel of the conspiracy. So Kuwait deserves what it got in 1990," he said.