Concerns about peace as Sharon battles for life

ISRAELI PRIME Minister Ariel Sharon clung to life on Thursday after a massive stroke that is likely to create a huge vacuum in Israeli politics and the West Asia peace process.

ISRAELI PRIME Minister Ariel Sharon clung to life on Thursday after a massive stroke that is likely to create a huge vacuum in Israeli politics and the West Asia peace process.

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Surgeons at Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital said they stemmed the bleeding in the 77-year-old leader's brain in a seven-hour operation and described his condition as critical but stable.

Hospital director Shlomo Mor-Yosef said Sharon would be kept in "deep sedation" and on a respirator for at least the next 24 hours. A cerebral haemorrhage felled Sharon on Wednesday in the midst of his fight for re-election on a promise to end conflict with the Palestinians.

Sharon, on whom Washington has pinned hopes for West Asia peace, never designated a successor. His deputy, Ehud Olmert, was named acting prime minister.

But political analysts said the March general election Sharon had been widely expected to win as head of the new centrist Kadima party would become an open race if he died or was incapacitated.