-Caveat Lector- Washington Warns Arafat against Anti-US Offensive ************************************************* DEBKAfile's Riyadh and Gulf sources discount the general explanation for the Palestinian leader's visit today to Jeddah, as being for an update on the efforts made by Saudi King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah to arrange for him to meet US President George W. Bush. Rather, Arafat, whom the Crown Prince summoned urgently from Durban, was discountenanced by being handed instead of an American invitation, an angry American warning. He was also taken aback by the number of high-ranking Saudi princes waiting for him with grave faces: the Crown Prince, foreign minister Saud el-Faisal, General Intelligence chief Nawaf Bin Abdulaziz, ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, who is the son of the defense minister, and Abdullah's two most senior advisers, Emir Abdulaziz Bin Abdullah and Emir Dr. Bandar Ben Salman. DEBKAfile's sources report that the Saudis confronted Arafat with a pile of intelligence data handed over by the Americans to demonstrate that his intelligence and terrorist organs had set up a series of hits against US targets and interests n the Persian Gulf and Middle East, and were only waiting for Arafat's final signal to go. The Americans, said the princes, had a long list of complaints and wanted explanations, as too did the Saudis. They found the increasingly violent anti-American tone of the pronouncements issuing from Arafat and his top lieutenants intolerable. Washington was moreover deeply suspicious of the motive behind killing Saturday, September 1, of Taiseer Khatab, director of the office of the Palestinian General Intelligence Chief, Amin el-Hindi, in a car explosion in Gaza City. Khatab had close American connections going back some years. They are therefore far from sure that Khatab fell victim to Israel's targeted campaign against terrorists, and are trying to find out if he was not eliminated by one of Arafat's close henchmen, possibly even Tawfiq Tirawi, West Bank General Intelligence chief. If that is what happened, then the murder would look like an initial step in Arafat's anti-American offensive as a test for US responses. On the night after the killing, an urgent consultation took place among top officials of the Bush administration. It was decided that just in case Arafat was behind the murder, it was time to warn him off any further acts injurious to US interests. Ambassador Bandar was asked to recruit Crown Prince Abdullah to the task. More than one corner of the Middle East is suddenly astir in relation to Arafat's plans. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak visits Damascus Monday, September 3, while Arafat is invited to Amman. Mubarak wants to talk President Bashar Assad out of inviting Arafat on September 12. According to DEBKAfile's Egyptian sources, Mubarak called Assad to set up his trip while King Abdullah of Jordan was sitting across from him in the presidential palace in Alexandria on Saturday, September 1. The Egyptian ruler assured Assad that the deepening Egyptian-Jordanian tie was not directed against Syria but at isolating Arafat; he invited the Syrian leader to join them. Assad did not reply but invited Mubarak to come over and discuss it. Arafat's visit to Amman for talks with King Abdullah arose out of the request from foreign minister Shimon Peres for a meeting. With the European Union foreign affair executive Javier Solana due in the region, the Europeans are leaning heavily on the Palestinian leader to meet Peres. Arafat complained he could not meet the Israeli foreign minister while himself under boycott from Arab rulers like Mubarak and Abdullah. 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