Analysis / U.S. impatience with Arafat could spur new IDF attack

Thirty-five years to the hour of the outbreak of a war that Israelis hoped would end all Mideast wars, a bomb-hauling Islamic Jihad suicide driver incinerated a crowded commuter bus Wednesday near the traditional site of the end of the world, killing at least 16 people and fueling fears of a Palestinian "megaterror" attack still in the works.

But with few tangible signs of progress in CIA Director George Tenet's mission to persuade Yasser Arafat to reform his security services into structures that could block attacks on Israelis, there were signs that Washington might relax its restraints on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government, with a new IDF onslaught in the territories a possible consequence.

Israel's chief of military intelligence said on the eve of the suicide car bombing that militant Palestinian groups were planning "megaterror" attacks to raise the ante of attacks within the Jewish state.