omorrow's Electronic Telegraph:

British doomsday cult members held By Ohad Gozani in Tel Aviv

THREE Britons were among 20 suspected members of Christian apocalyptic cults under arrest and facing deportation from Israel yesterday as police stepped up measures against possible violence at the beginning of the Millennium.

They were rounded up in a midnight swoop on their homes near the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem where dozens of Christians have settled to secure front-row seats for the Second Coming. An Interior Ministry official said those arrested comprised 13 Americans, three Britons, three Jamaicans and an Australian and included five children. They could all be deported within 72 hours unless they succeed in any appeal to Israeli courts.

Linda Menuhin, spokesman for the Public Security Ministry, said it was feared that the group might resort to mass suicide or violence to hasten the arrival of Christ. It was not immediately clear whether the swoop was based on tips from Interpol and foreign intelligence services. Israel expects that some four million Christian pilgrims will visit the Holy Land for the Millennium, and that followers of so-called "doomsday" cults will try to sneak in among them.

In January, 12 followers of the Denver-based Concerned Christians group were expelled after arriving in Israel on tourist visas. Earlier this month, Irish and Romanian pilgrims said to belong to the group were barred from entering. The group's leader said he would kill himself on Jerusalem's Temple Mount at the turn of the Millennium.

A spokesman for the latest batch of detainees spoke to reporters at a police station in Jerusalem. Brother David, formerly of Syracuse, New York, said he and his followers were arrested "because we speak the truth and Israel is about to hear the truth in a greater way than ever before".

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), October 25, 1999