"Since a vacuum would have been dangerous, there was a need for another initiative that will park us in a position where we'll be able - if and when there is a partner that is ready to fight terror, institute reforms and change the leadership - to return to the road-map. If we do return, the road-map will be the only plan that is accepted by us."Elsewhere in the interview, Mr Sharon reiterated his threat to expel, if not kill, Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian President. He criticised an opposition plan to continue dismantling certain settlements and added: "Today, we are also not following the road-map I am not ready for this ... The disengagement plan relieves Israel of pressures to adopt one plan or another that would be dangerous for it," Mr Sharon said in his interview.However, Mr Sharon's spokesman, Ra'anan Gissin, later told The Independent that Mr Sharon had not repudiated the road-map, drafted by the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia.Yet, Sa'eb Erakat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, said that the Sharon interview confirmed Palestinian fears that the disengagement was a ploy to cement Israel's control over large areas of the West Bank. A Palestinian girl was shot by troops after the fighting, witnesses said.Israeli forces later raided Jenin, where they killed at least four al-Aqsa men in a caf?The dead included the commander of the wanted men, Fadi Zacharna Three others were captured. An injured man was taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment.Meanwhile, in an interview with the Yediot Ahronot daily, Mr Sharon appeared to put the nail in the coffin of the US- sponsored peace plan.

Asked for his long-term vision for the region, the prime minister said that as long as there was no significant shift in the Palestinian leadership and policy, "Israel will continue its war on terrorism, and will stay in the territories that will remain after the implementation of disengagement."Sharon put clear blue water between his disengagement plan and the road-map lauded by US President George Bush. Ten Palestinians, including an 11-year-old girl, were killed by Israeli forces as a day of violence erupted on the West Bank and the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suggested Israel would not be following the US-backed "road-map" peace plan. Five fighters from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and another group were killed. His credibility was not helped, however, when it emerged that he had tried to sue the Hollywood actor George Clooney over his role in a film, The Peacemaker, as a special forces soldier who averts a nuclear attack on Manhattan.Idema claimed to have stopped nuclear terrorists himself before joining the Northern Alliance as a freelance fighter soon after 11 September 2001.. Nato sent personnel on his raids and the US military accepted a "terrorist suspect" from him.Idema claimed to have personally stopped terrorist plots to assassinate President Hamid Karzai and blow up the massive US military base at Bagram near Kabul with fuel tankers.From prison, he said he had tracked down Osama bin Laden to a village just over the border in Pakistan. The prison, on a dusty plain outside the capital, is guarded by anti-aircraft guns.Conditions are described as appalling, with widespread cases of dysentery and other diseases.

It is said to be seriously overcrowded and sexual abuse of young prisoners is rife.Inmates are crammed into fetid rooms which are stiflingly hot in summer and freezing in winter. His right-hand man, Brent Bennett, was also jailed for 10 years and the award-winning New York film maker Edward Caraballo received eight years.Four Afghans were sentenced to jail terms ranging from one to five years.Caraballo appeared shell-shocked and was silent throughout the proceedings.It was unclear where the three will be imprisoned. So far they have been held in secret police detention.Afghanistan's prisons include the notorious Soviet-built Pul-e-Chorki, full of Taliban detainees, and one of the world's biggest. It could be near Florida's east coast as early as the weekend..