Death squads controlled by Gaza's would-be strongman Mohammed Dahlan are busy settling accounts with Palestinian intelligence chief Mussa Arafat's men. Sending an I-am-in-charge message, Dahlan dispatched assassins Wednesday, February 23 to gun down a Palestinian military intelligence officer and throw his body outside his home. According to DEBKAfile's Palestinian and intelligence sources, Dahlan's death squads had earlier disposed of three other Arafat adherents, murders Palestinian authorities have scrambled to hush up.
Captain Mohammed Abu Jarad, 27, died Saturday, February 19, in hail of submachine-gun bullets and grenades on his car in Gaza's Sheikh Daraj neighborhood. His body, riddled with bullets and shrapnel, was dumped in the center of the city for all to see. A day later, masked men grabbed Captain Dihab Hamdu, 33, from his home in Gaza's Sheikh Reduan district. His corpse was also abandoned in the town center. A third intelligence officer, another captain, was killed in a separate attack but his body has yet been found. Our sources report that Nabil Hamous, leader of Gaza's death squads, arranged the assassinations at Dahlan's behest. All of the dead officers took part in clashes between Arafat's and Dahlan's forces, as well as in the infamous incident last November in which warning shots were fired over the head of new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) after Yasser Arafat's death, when he visited a tent set up for mourners in Gaza City. Following that non-fatal shooting, Abu Mazen seemed to have brokered a "sulha", or reconciliation, between the Gaza Strip's three warring chiefs: Dahlan, Arafat, who holds multiple jobs as general security commander, head of the Palestinian armed forces in the Gaza Strip and military intelligence chief, and Rashid Abu Shbak, head of the preventive security service in the territory. Part of the peace deal was mutual consent to dismantle the death squads. The latest wave of murders indicates that none of the rivals intended to keep his side of the bargain and has no scruples about defying Abbas' authority. Dahlan simply ordered his hired killers to obey him rather than Abbas but to keep a low profile. Internal strife for the top spot in the Gaza Strip has just begun. Several of our Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip say it is only a matter of time before Mussa Arafat and his followers respond in kind to Dahlan's "house-cleaning" operation.