| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Israel-Palestine-Jordan | |
| Fatah and Hamas gunmen clash despite unity talks™ | |
| 2007-03-10 | |
| JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Fatah gunmen shot at the convoy of a minister from the rival Hamas movement in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the first factional violence since Palestinian unity talks™ began a month ago. Bored?
Somebody drop their gun? Fatah, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, and officials from the ruling Hamas faction offered different accounts of the incident which occurred despite predictions by Hamas members that a joint government deal with Fatah was near. They did it! No, they did it! No, they did it! Kibha told Reuters that Fatah gunmen had stopped his car at a makeshift checkpoint outside Tubas."Without warning they shot at my car," he said. His convoy turned around and headed in the opposite direction, toward the West Bank town of Jenin. Run away! Run away! A Fatah official said their gunmen had opened fire only after armed members of a Hamas-led police force accompanying the minister's car had shot toward them. A Palestinian photographer was injured by a bullet fragment in the head, the official said. Must've been aiming at his foot. In Gaza City, gunmen stormed the campus of the pro-Fatah Al Quds University, and shot and wounded a student council member from Fatah, a Palestinian security source said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Gaza shooting. Hillbillies? Frat boys from Gaza State? Hamas denies it has any police in the West Bank. Fatah has accused Hamas of seeking to build such a force there. Disagreement over the Hamas police force in Gaza is a major obstacle to the sides wrapping up talks over a unity government. Reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live "Ex Police" skit... After Saudi mediation, Hamas and Fatah agreed a month ago to forge a joint coalition cabinet, largely ending weeks of bloody factional fighting centered in the Gaza Strip in which more than 90 people were killed. No money has changed hands yet, I assume. Both sides must be getting cranky. Abbas said on Thursday a unity deal was "99 percent" agreed although he had not yet agreed with Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas who would be interior minister, a post that controls the powerful security services. Saeed Seyam, the current interior minister from Hamas, said the movement has demanded its police force remain intact under any unity deal, pending a reorganization of the other security forces now dominated by Abbas's Fatah. "The executive force will remain until the other security services are restructured," Seyam said in Gaza. Until then, rest up, rearm, reload... | |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #2 Fatah gunmen had stopped his car at a makeshift checkpoint outside Tubas."Without warning they shot at my car," he said. His convoy turned around and headed in the opposite direction, Something wrong with this story. if you're STOPPED, then you get shot at, there's no time to turn around and flee, much less turn a whole convoy, he should be dead if his story is true, since he's obviously NOT, the tale's a lie. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2007-03-10 21:58 |
| #1 Needs the "popcorn" graphic. |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-03-10 16:02 |