Word: arafats
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...civilians out of Gaza and turned over responsibility for the area to the Palestinian Authority, Abu Samhadana and his troops have a new target: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his security services, who are struggling to impose order in Gaza, home to 1.5 million Palestinians. Abbas' predecessor, Yasser Arafat, used to send Abu Samhadana $10,000 a month, but Abbas ended those payments in February. Without such support, Abu Samhadana's army is filled with jobless (and armed) men who have been expressing their frustration by going on a spree of kidnappings and assassinations. "Gaza is in security chaos," says...
...Samhadana's men have become more brazen in going after their enemies. Early last month, gunmen besieged the house of Moussa Arafat, a top security adviser to Abbas, dragged him into the street and shot him 23 times. Members of the Salah ed-Din Brigades claimed responsibility for the killing in a statement released through a website, saying it killed Arafat because he was a "collaborator and corrupt." Senior Palestinian security officials say they believe the gunmen were persuaded to carry out the hit by Arafat's rivals within Fatah. Over the summer, branches of the Salah ed-Din Brigades...
...problem lies in the large numbers of gunmen nominally linked to the ruling Fatah faction of the PLO. Over the five years of the intifadeh, they've come to rule their villages, refugee camps, or towns as gangster fiefs. They were somewhat held in check by the money Yasser Arafat sent them. When Abbas took over as Palestinian leader after Arafat's death in November, he stopped the funds. That makes these groups dangerous and desperate. They've kidnapped foreign aid works and journalists to threaten the Authority. They've also become linked to infighting among top Palestinian Authority officials...
...Gaza is in security chaos. Last week's assassination of Moussa Arafat, a nephew of Yasser Arafat and a security chief seen as deeply corrupt, showed the precipitous slip into fraternal violence that seriously threatens Abbas's hold on the Strip. This week, the mobs that burned the abandoned Israeli synagogues in the evacuated settlements illustrated how little control Abbas has over the situation in Gaza. There were Palestinian troops around the settlements, but they didn't prevent the riots...
...ASSASSINATED. MOUSSA ARAFAT, 61, security adviser to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, and a cousin of Yasser Arafat; after gunmen stormed his family compound, dragged him into the street in his pajamas and shot him 23 times; in Gaza City. Amid claims of responsibility by militant Palestinian group Popular Resistance Committees, which criticized Arafat as corrupt, Abbas put his security forces on heightened alert, vowing to punish the killers...