Undercover Border Police troops killed an Islamic Jihad commander in the West Bank town of Jenin on Wednesday, one day after a suicide bombing attempt he allegedly ordered was thwarted in Tel Aviv.

The slain man was identified as Mahmoud Abu Ubayed, 24, commander of Islamic Jihad in areas near Jenin. Witnesses said Abu Ubayed was driving his car near the Yihya Ayyash Square in Jenin when undercover troops in civilian clothing surprised him and sprayed the vehicle with bullets. The square was named for a Hamas bombing mastermind killed in an Israeli-ordered attack in 1996.

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The Israel Defense Forces commander of the Jenin area, Lieutenant General Hertsi Halevi, said Abu Ubayed was the Islamic Jihad's leading explosives expert, and that recently the IDF had been making a concerted effort to arrest him due to the fact that he had significantly improved the organization's bomb-making capability.

Abu Ubayed was also the one who announced that the Islamic Jihad was behind Tuesday's failed suicide bombing attempt in Tel Aviv.

According to Halevi, the undercover troops followed Abu Ubayed's car, but Abu Ubayed noticed them and aimed his weapon at them. The Border Policemen then opened fire from a distance of four meters.

Palestinian Authority police officers who arrived at the scene were disarmed by the border policemen.

"The Palestinian policemen made the right decision, even if it puts them in an awkward position on the streets of Jenin," Halevi said.

"Surveillance showed the targeted man was armed and he was shot in a joint operation conducted by the army, Shin Bet and undercover Border Police," an IDF spokesman said.

Islamic Jihad on Wednesday vowed retaliation for Ubayed's killing.

"The Zionist enemy's crimes and killing will not effect our resistance program and God willing today's crime will not pass without revenge and revenge will be soon," the group said.

The planned large-scale attack in the Tel Aviv area was prevented Tuesday when police and security forces arrested an Islamic Jihad militant and his partners at an apartment in Bat Yam.

According to the IDF, Abu Ubayed dispatched the suspected bomber, a resident of a village near Jenin. Islamic Jihad last carried out a suicide attack in Israel on January 29, when three people were killed in the Red Sea resort of Eilat.

The bomber caught had given Ubayed's name during interrogation, Army Radio reported. The IDF said that Ubayed had supplied the bomber with the explosives.

The suspect told police where the explosive device he was supposed to use in the attack was located and the bomb squad found the large device in a garbage can in the center of Rishon Letzion.

The would-be bomber, 24, was identified in a statement the organization released to the Palestinian press.

On Tuesday morning, the militant left his village of Jiblun, which borders the Green Line east of Jenin, carrying a bag with a bomb. Close to midday the Shin Bet received a warning that a terrorist attack was in progress. This information triggered an extensive manhunt.

In the afternoon, police declared a state of high alert in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area and set up several roadblocks, especially in the city's southern quarters. Police patrolled the streets, carried out spot-checks on vehicles and searched the yards of buildings. Helicopters carried out searches from the air.

The police activity resulted in heavy traffic delays in the broader Dan region.

The searches succeeded in locating the terrorist in a Bat Yam apartment housing Palestinians without legal permits to be in Israel.

The would-be suicide bomber was questioned by the security forces and a short while later, he led investigators to the center of Rishon Letzion where he had dropped off the bomb in a trash can.

Police demolitions experts carried out a controlled explosion of the device after evacuating dozens of nearby buildings.

The militant said he had been ordered to carry out the suicide bombing in southern Tel Aviv. It appears the target was supposed to have been the area of the central bus station.

It is still unclear why the militant decided to hide the explosive device he was carrying in Rishon Letzion and then proceed to Bat Yam, and not go directly to the target area.

The three Palestinians living in the Bat Yam apartment were also arrested and the Shin Bet is trying to figure out whether they were in any way involved in the planning of the attack, or whether they thought the would-be bomber was a laborer like them.

Following the arrest the state of alert in the Tel Aviv area was lowered and most of the road blocks were lifted.

A senior security source told Haaretz that the Shin Bet and police activity are worthy of praise and that their resourcefulness has led to the prevention of a major terrorist attack.

"There is no doubt that a major disaster was prevented," Major General David Tzur, commander of the Tel Aviv police district said Tuesday.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility Tuesday night for the attempted attack in Tel Aviv. The organization has refused to participate in the hudna - the temporary cease-fire to which Hamas has signed up - and has continued its efforts to carry out suicide bomb attacks.

Jihad also announced recently that it would not participate in the Palestinian government of national unity, which Hamas and Fatah agreed upon in a Saudi-brokered accord earlier this month.

The United States has placed a bounty on the head of Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Shalah, based in Damascus, and the organization has warned that if its leader is harmed it will also target American interests.

Islamic Jihad is considered to be an organization that is supported and funded by Iran. The militant group participated in a suicide bombing in Eilat, in late January, that claimed the lives of three Israeli civilians.

The Islamic Jihad network in the northern West Bank is considered to be the most lethal in the territories. In 2006 its members were responsible for two suicide bombings in Tel Aviv, killing 11 Israeli civilians.

Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin said recently that during the past year more than 1,000 Islamic Jihad activists were arrested in the West Bank, of which the security services described 96 as "potential suicide bombers."

PA officials: 3 U.S. women released after abducted in Nablus
Meanwhile, a Palestinian man released three U.S. women on Tuesday about an hour after abducting them and holding them in a village in the West Bank, a Palestinian official told Reuters.

"The girls are in our hands," Kamal el-Sheikh, governor of the West Bank city of Nablus. The women, all in their 20s, were unharmed, el-Sheikh said. No further details on their identities were released.

Sheikh said "a guy with personal demands" had seized the women shortly after nightfall and held them in a village called Kufr Kalil.

A man calling himself Hadi Saud contacted The Associated Press in Nablus and said he was the kidnapper. He demanded to be given a job in the security forces and medication for a shooting injury sustained last year, in exchange for releasing the hostages. He provided no proof that he was holding the women.

The security officials said the three women were last seen taking pictures on the outskirts of the Balata refugee camp near Nablus. The officials did not release the names of the three women.

Two of the women were volunteers with a non-governmental group involved in water projects in the West Bank, and a third was a friend of theirs, a Palestinian security source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The source said the women had been on an outing in Nablus and were headed back in a taxi when the man kidnapped them at gunpoint, demanding the driver drive to the village.

The kidnapper, who was wounded in the leg in fighting with IDF forces, had demanded medical care and a job in exchange for the women, and officials said they would look at his case, the source said.

Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, said U.S. officials were informed of the kidnappings. "We take them extremely seriously," Schweitzer-Bluhm said of the incident.

In the past, scores of foreigners were kidnapped by various Palestinian
militant groups, but usually released unharmed after a few hours.

Israeli hurt when shot near W. Bank fence
In a separate incident earlier Tuesday, an Israeli citizen was moderately wounded in a shooting attack in north Jerusalem next to the Qalandiya checkpoint.

The victim, a technician who was working on a nearby section of the separation fence, was hit by a bullet in his upper body and was taken to a nearby hospital in moderate condition.