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Arafat tries to expel militants

JERUSALEM - Palestinian officers detained 17 militants in Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah on Saturday after they defied the Palestinian leader's request to leave and pave the way for an Israeli withdrawal from the city and the lifting of a ban on Arafat's travels.

It was the first time since Arafat's compound was shelled by the Israelis and he was confined there more than a year ago that he has sought to expel extremists taking refuge at the complex, which has been partly demolished by Israeli tanks and bulldozers.

The attempt to expel the 17 men, a day after Israeli troops raided West Bank cities and arrested four militants, was immediately criticized by Palestinian militant leaders, who warned they would demand the resignation of advisers to Arafat if harm came to the expelled men.

On Saturday the head of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Ramallah, Kamal Ghanem, said the 17 militants had refused to be transferred to Jericho in the West Bank, a city that can be reached only by passing through Israeli checkpoints.

Ghanem said the militants had been confined to a room at Arafat's headquarters and had started a hunger strike.

Also Saturday, Israel said it was dismantling six more outposts in the West Bank.

MOSCOW - The death toll in a suicide bombing climbed to 41 on Saturday, the day after a truck packed with explosives crashed into a military hospital in Mozdok.

Sergei Shoigu, Russia's minister of civil defense, said 18 people might still be trapped.

The suicide attack, the eighth in four months, appeared to be part of a campaign by Chechen fighters to continue the guerrilla war in the small Russian republic and to foil efforts by President Vladimir Putin to negotiate its end.

SAUNA CHAMPIONS CROWNED: Braving 230-degree heat, a dozen men and women sweated in wooden cubicles Saturday as long as they could stand it, aiming to grab the Sauna World Championship title in southern Finland.

The men's winner, Timo Kaukonen, a Finn from nearby Lahti, lasted 16 minutes, 15 seconds. He beat three-time champion Leo Pusa by 7 seconds. Belorussian Natalia Trifanova won the women's title, lasting 13 minutes.