World

Another Palestinian terrorist exploded a bomb aboard a bus carrying Israeli school children and commuters in Jerusalem, killing himself and at least 10 others. Another 49 people were hurt in the attack, the 41st of its type since the current intifada began Sept. 28, 2000. Responsibility was claimed by Hamas, which vowed still more "bigger and, God willing, greater" attacks. A spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Israel would respond swiftly, raising expectations that its forces would reoccupy Bethlehem, the dead bomber's home. In anticipation, Palestinian security personnel in the city were evacuating their bases.

Muslims on two continents were blamed for - or suspected of - attacks against Americans, US business interests, or cultural events considered offensive to Islam:

• A policeman with a history of mental problems seriously wounded two US soldiers on a Kuwait highway before fleeing into neighboring Saudi Arabia.

• An American missionary nurse was shot to death, execution-style, in her charity clinic in Sidon, Lebanon. Islamic radicals had demanded that the clinic, which treats pregnant women, be closed.

• Police in Saudi Arabia's Kharj province were hunting an armed man who set a fire that gutted a McDonald's fast-food outlet near a base used by US Air Force units.

• Rioting Muslims hacked two people to death and set fire to at least 10 churches and newspaper offices in Kaduna, Nigeria, apparently in anger at a story relating to the Miss World pageant, which is due to open in the capital, Abuja, Dec. 7.

Without incident, police in Indonesia arrested a suspect believed to be the main plotter of the Oct. 12 terrorist bombings on Bali that killed almost 200 people. He was identified as Imam Samudra, the operations chief of Jemaah Islamiyah, a radical Muslim movement believed to have ties to Al Qaeda. Seven other suspects still are being sought for their roles in the bombings.

The cutoff of fuel shipments to North Korea by the US was called a "wanton violation" of the 1994 deal agreed to by the Pyongyang government and the Clinton administration. It said the decision nullifies the pact, which was aimed at stopping nuclear proliferation. A spokes-man traveling with President Bush in Europe said: "I would just point out that it was they, themselves, who first said [the deal] was nullified" by confessing last month that they have a nuclear weapons program.

An explosion inside an Army base in southern Ecuador killed at least six people and injured as many as 300 others. Property damage was reported in an eight-block radius in Riobamba, a city of 100,000 people, and thousands of residents fled in panic or were evacuated. The Wednesday afternoon blast was blamed on a grenade that exploded accidentally as maintenance was being performed in the base's ammunition depot.