Tel Aviv suicide bomber was only 16: family

NABLUS, West Bank, Nov 1 (AFP) - The family of a Palestinian teenager who was said to have carried out a suicide attack at a Tel Aviv marketplace on Monday told AFP he was only 16 years old.
The attack was claimed by the left-leaning Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) which named the bomber as 18-year-old Amer al-Fahr from the Askar refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
But visiting the family home in the camp, an AFP correspondent saw al-Fahr`s recently-issued identity card, which said he was born on June 6 1988.
"He left the house at 7:30 am (0530 GMT) this morning and didn`t say where he was going," one of his brothers told AFP. "He hasn`t come back."
He said the family was only aware of what had happened through media reports and could not offer any further confirmation of the bomber`s identity.
Palestinian rights groups and intellectuals have frequently condemned the recruitment of minors for carrying out attacks, while Israel has launched a media blitz denouncing "the exploitation of children by Palestinian terrorist groups".

11/01/2004 13:28 GMT - AFP