ARABS-ISRAEL - Oct. 27 - Suicide Bomber Kills 2 In West Bank.

A suicide bomber blows himself up near Israeli soldiers at a petrol station at the entrance to the settlement of Ariel, 25 km east of Tel Aviv, killing at least two people and wounding about 20 others, according to security officials and rescue workers. Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman told Israel Radio: "A suicide bomber came and there were many soldiers... and he blew himself up. Soldiers were among the casualties". Nachman and medics initially said the bomber killed himself and three Israelis. But Ariel security chief Menachem Goldin and medical officials later amended the death toll, saying the bomber and two Israelis were killed and some 20 people wounded. According to some witness accounts reported by Israeli media, a soldier shot and wounded the bomber, who then exploded and was engulfed by flames. A fire brigade official said: "The terrorist was still burning when we got there and we extinguished the fire immediately". (Ariel is one of the 145 settlements that Israeli governments have planted on land occupied in the 1967 war. The international community regards settlements as illegal under international law. Israel disputes this). Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militia connected with Arafat's Fatah faction, took responsibility for the Ariel attack and attributed it to a 19-year-old resident of nearby Nablus, Mohammad Shqeir. In the afternoon, the Army, which have taken control of Nablus, shot and killed two members of Al Aqsa brigades. PA officials called it an assassination, but the Army said the men died in a gunfight.