LONDON, December 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Palestinian President Yasser Arafat accused, in an interview with a British newspaper published December, 15, Osama bin Laden of "exploiting the Palestinian cause for his own interests."

Arafat told the Times that he felt bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, was seeking support in the Islamic world and that is why he uses the Palestinian struggle for freedom and liberation to garner such support.

"Why is bin Laden talking about Palestine now? ...He never helped us. He was working in another, completely different area and against our interests," Arafat told the paper.

"I'm telling him directly not to hide behind the Palestinian cause," Arafat said.

According to the BBC News Online, Arafat acknowledged in the interview that there was sympathy for bin Laden among young people in the Palestinian territories, but stressed this emanated from despair.

"These kids don't really know who bin Laden is," Arafat said, adding that he was the first leader in the Arab world to stand up to bin Laden.

Arafat’s remarks comes after Palestinian security forces accused Israeli intelligence agents on December 7 of trying to set up a mock Al-Qaeda cell in the Gaza Strip.

This came after Israeli allegations that Al-Qaeda was active in the fenced-in coastal area.

Colonel Rashid Abu Shbak, head of Gaza Strip Preventive Security, told journalists that Israeli agents, posing as operatives of bin Laden’s network, recruited Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

"Over the past nine months, we’ve been investigating eight cases in which Israeli intelligence posing as Al-Qaeda operatives recruited Palestinians in the Gaza Strip," said Abu Shbak.

He refuted the Israeli-propagated claim that Al-Qaeda was operating in the occupied Palestinian territories.

"Al-Qaeda doesn’t recruit so easily and openly," Abu Shbak said.

Arafat branded Sharon’s claim of having any Al-Qaeda members in Gaza as "a big, big, big, big lie to cover (Sharon’s) attacks and his crimes against our people everywhere."

Palestinian International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath had also accused Sharon of trying to piggyback on the U.S.-led 'war against terrorism' to justify "more attacks on the Palestinian people and violence in the Gaza Strip".

Ever since the September 11 attacks, Al Qaeda has repeatedly said in video and audio recordings broadcast on TV as well as alleged letters published on various sites that the United States and any country that supports Israel or that plays a role in the oppression of Muslims around the world would pay dearly.