Palestinians inaugurate Arafat shrine

RAMALLAH, West Bank, (AFP)

Dozens of Palestinian leaders and foreign dignitaries gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday to open a new mausoleum complex for the historic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas kicked off the ceremony by laying a wreath at Arafat's tomb, in the heart of a white marble complex erected at the compound where Arafat spent his last two years besieged by Israeli forces.

In a short speech Abbas called for the "president and martyr Yasser Arafat to be buried in Jerusalem, which he loved, and where he was born, and which our entire people is determined will be the capital of a Palestinian state." The ceremony will launch a series of events to commemorate Arafat - widely considered the father of the Palestinian cause - three years after he died of an unknown ailment in a Paris hospital on November 11, 2004.

The ceremony was presided over by Palestinian honour guards in navy green uniforms with golden epaulettes, with a brass band playing in the background and a prayer delivered by a local imam.

This year's commemoration comes as Palestinians are more divided than at any point in their history, with the Islamist Hamas movement ruling the besieged Gaza Strip and Abbas's authority limited to the West Bank. But three years on Arafat is still exalted by Palestinians of all political stripes, including Hamas, which routed forces loyal to the Fatah party Arafat founded and led and villifies his successor Abbas.