Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The Jan. 9 Palestinian elections to choose a successor to Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority president may prompt attacks by armed groups, the U.S. State Department said.

``Some Palestinian extremist elements, especially in Gaza, may attempt acts of violence against international election observers,'' the State Department said in an e-mailed statement from Washington. U.S. citizens should leave the Gaza Strip and defer traveling to the area during the election, it said.

Israel has information that terrorist organizations plan to carry out attacks on election day, Lieutenant Colonel Yurai Keidar, said yesterday in Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said the new Palestinian leadership must crack down on terrorism and dismantle its infrastructure if the Palestinian Authority is to become a partner in the peace process. Israel and the Palestinian Authority are coordinating security for the poll in the biggest such operation in the past four years.

Palestinian groups may try to ``undermine the Palestinian Authority's ability to conduct free and fair elections,'' the State Department said in its statement.

Mahmood Abbas, the candidate of Fatah, the biggest faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization, is leading opinion polls as the candidate who will succeed Arafat, who died in a Paris hospital on Nov. 11.

Rocket Attacks

Fatah's central committee yesterday called on the Hamas group to stop firing rockets into Israel because they provide an excuse for Israel to carry out military operations in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported on its Web site, citing unidentified Palestinian officials.

Palestinian rocket attacks have increased in recent weeks. Twelve Israeli soldiers were wounded in a rocket attack on a base near the Gaza Strip yesterday, the Israel Defense Forces army said in an e-mailed statement.

Fatah's committee, which met yesterday in the Gaza Strip, called on Hamas to cease incitement against Abbas, the PLO chairman, Haaretz reported.

Abbas, 69, also know as Abu Mazen, is supported by 65 percent of Palestinian voters, according to an opinion poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

That is almost three times the percentage for the next most popular candidate, Mustafa Barghouti, the poll showed. The survey of 1,319 adults was taken the last two days of December and has a margin of error of 3 percent, the center said in a report posted on its web site.

Reduce Friction

Israeli soldiers will try to keep out of Palestinian cities on election day, and the day before and after, ``to reduce friction'' and allow some Palestinian security forces to carry weapons, Keidar said.

Israel has issued special passes to allow international observers, Palestinian candidates and their aides, and election officials to pass through checkpoints in the West Bank, he said. Palestinians living in east Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed, will be allowed to vote in the city or in the West Bank, officials said.

The Washington-based National Democratic Institute is sending 80 observers, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Les Campbell, the NDI's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said yesterday in a telephone interview from Ramallah in the West Bank.

More than 500 international observers will monitor the voting, Israeli officials said.

The Palestinian presidential election is the first since 1996. Israel refused to negotiate with Arafat, whom it blamed for the violence since 2000 that has killed about 4,500 Palestinians and Israelis.

To contact the reporters on this story: David Rosenberg in Jerusalem at drosenberg1@bloomberg.net; Paul Tighe in Sydney at 8626 or ptighe@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 5, 2005 20:19 EST