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“We cannot reach certain areas near the border because the Israelis fire on us. If we receive guarantees from our leadership that the Israelis won’t fire at us then I will be out there doing the job minutes afterwards.” Otherwise, he said, they may only be able to stop the militants who unwisely pass by his men’s military positions.In those “certain areas” yesterday, the orange groves on a hill that looks across to the Israeli border town of Sderot – and a tank that protects it – Nasser Abu Jarmeh, 57, who guards the crop from thieves, was in no doubt about the urgency of Mr Abbas’s task. We expect instructions during the next 48 hours.” He didn’t want to talk about politics but, as a Palestinian as well as a soldier, he said, “the national interest is to have quiet”.But he also underlined the importance of the resumed security talks with the Palestinians which Ariel Sharon announced yesterday. Answering only to the name of Abu Saleh, the officer was cautious, if friendly, as he stood at the gates of the local National Security base – three times bombarded by Israeli forces during the past four years.As the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas continued intensive efforts in Gaza City to agree a ceasefire with the armed factions, he declared: “We are ready with all our resources to implement any political decisions. More than 25 of them were stationed for the first time yesterday at the nearest Palestinian military outpost to the border, in Beit Hanoun’s Boura district, from which many of the rocket attacks have been launched.Only a few of the men in khaki fatigues were carrying their their semi-automatic weapons. For now there was nothing for them to do except smoke, chat, play a little volleyball – and wait. The green-bereted second lieutenant in charge of the Palestinian National Security service’s third infantry unit was giving little away yesterday – and certainly no information on the amounts of weaponry or men freshly deployed in northern Gaza.
For if the Palestinian Authority (PA) implements its threat to act against militants firing rockets into Israel across the security fence round Gaza, much of the task will fall to him and the men under his command.

Most will sacrifice an animal, generally a sheep, in remembrance of Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son to God.Tomorrow and again on Saturday they will return to Mina to stone the jamarat , three pillars symbolising the devil, the ultimate but also the most dangerous ritual.Last year 244 pilgrims died in a stampede during the ritual; a stampede in 1990 killed 1,426 people.. “I want to pray to Allah to give me a long and wealthy life,” he said.The pilgrims will return to Mecca today, the first day of Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice). The congregation at Mount Arafat is a day of soul searching and prayer, interpreted as a foretaste of Judgement Day.Standing on Mount Arafat before sunset is the high point of the haj, and pilgrims who fail to make it on time must repeat their pilgrimage in future.”I am delighted to be here,” said Mohammed Tahrio, a 28-year-old Nigerian, performing the haj for the first time. All able-bodied Muslims who can afford to must perform haj at least once in their lifetime.The haj began in Mecca with the circling of the Kaaba, the large stone structure that Muslims face during their daily prayers. The faithful – the men clad in a white cloth, the women covered except for the hands and face – spent the day praying for forgiveness and beseeching God for success.Pilgrims held hands out for each other to climb the hill; the many already at the top pushed and shoved to hug a pillar, standing where the Prophet gave his last sermon in the year 632.The pilgrimage to birthplace of Islam is one of the central religious duties of Muslims.

Arms aloft, two million Muslims from around the world prayed for salvation yesterday at Mount Arafat on the most important day of the annual Haj pilgrimage.
From the break of dawn, tens of thousands of buses ferried pilgrims from a sprawling tent city in the valley of Mina to the hill just outside Mecca. But for Cornwell Jnr, no such concerns will linger, only the memory of a once-in-a-lifetime day.. For President Bush, it will be business as usual, and perhaps a moment’s reflection on recent second terms, marked by Watergate, Iran Contra, Monica Lewinsky In politics, only the unexpected is certain. Democrats may have left town to drown their sorrows, but thousands of protesters have arrived, even thoughwould-be egg throwers will not get within a quarter-mile of the White House.On Friday the barricades will be removed, and normality will return. This year, the rope would bounce off the bullet-proof glass screen protecting the presidential viewing box, while Montie would be wrestled to the ground by security men.

Ike knew what was going to happen, but an irritated Secret Service did not. Anti-aircraft batteries stand guard, and Coast Guard gunboats patrol the Potomac. The latest scare (although authorities admit there is no sign of a terrorist threat) is that al- Qa’ida will use limousines filled with gas canisters as bombs.Certainly, there will be no repeat of 1953, when the newly inaugurated Dwight Eisenhower was lassoed during the parade by a stuntman cowboy called Montie Montana. For the others, tickets run at $400 upwards.But if freedom is this inauguration’s leitmotiv, the capital of the land of liberty is under unprecedented lockdown. Security around presidents has been tight before: in 1861, on the eve of the Civil War, Pinkerton guards (forerunners of the Secret Service) protected Lincoln as his train passed through Baltimore, a hotbed of secessionism.But if America was then even more divided than today, in the mid-19th century there was no tradition of suicide bombers Today, nothing is left to chance Some 20,000 officers are being deployed. Of the nine balls only one, the “Commander-in-Chief” ball reserved for service personnel, is free.

In 1917 Woodrow Wilson decreed there would be no parties, on the grounds that jollifications were inappropriate when most of the world (though not yet the US) was at war.Not so, insists the Bush administration, which has made a point of presenting citizens with tax cuts, not demands for sacrifice, as it wages war. Such is the American way.But is the lavish spending not out of place when south Asia has been overwhelmed by the deadliest natural disaster of modern times, when the US itself is up to its neck in debt, and American lives and treasure are being squandered in a bloody war? After all, in 1945, FDR (admittedly so ill he would be dead in less than three months) held his fourth inaugural in the White House, offering guests a cold chicken salad. Footing the bill will be the usual suspects: wealthy Bush cronies, drug and energy companies. They will be rewarded for their contributions (up to $250,000 apiece) by candlelit dinners with George and Laura, dozens of tickets to tonight’s nine official inaugural balls – and of course discreet political favours down the line). The official theme is “Celebrating Freedom, and Honouring Service”, but the emphasis is on celebration. At a cost of $40m plus (£21m), this inauguration is the most expensive ever. Even his excellent speechwriter Michael Gerson, so fluent in uplifting religious imagery, will find it hard to summon up a call to national unity, when almost 50 per cent of the population can barely tolerate the ground Mr Bush walks on.So on to the fun part.