Hamas, Abbas rivalry spurs Palestinian arms race

By Adam Entous and Haitham Tamimi

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas’s forces and Hamas rivals are expanding their
arsenals as a power struggle intensifies, increasing the risk
that a showdown could turn bloody, security sources and
diplomats said.

New weapons and equipment can be seen on the streets of
Gaza and the West Bank, while prices for black market guns and
ammunition have soared in a growing arms race despite pledges
by both sides to prevent civil war.

“These kinds of preparations have the ability to spin out
of control and could produce exactly what they’re trying to
prevent,” said Mouin Rabbani, senior Middle East analyst for
the International Crisis Group.

Palestinian security consultant Yaser Dajani, who sees the
build-up as sabre-rattling rather than a prelude to a
full-scale conflict, said: “It’s like flexing your muscles.”

Tension has grown since Abbas threatened to call a
referendum on a manifesto for statehood that implicitly
recognizes Israel if the Hamas-led government persists in
rejecting it. Rival forces have clashed sporadically in Gaza.

Western powers want to ensure that Abbas emerges victorious
in any power struggle with Hamas, which is formally committed
to destroying Israel rather than creating a state alongside it.

U.S. HELP

With U.S. encouragement, Israel has agreed to let Egypt and
Jordan supply Abbas’s presidential guard with small arms and
ammunition. Spain has promised to send a fleet of
four-wheel-drive vehicles to bolster the guard.

Western security officials in the Gaza Strip said members
of one of Abbas’s elite bodyguard units had shown them newly
issued anti-tank rockets concealed in backpacks.

In the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, where Abbas has
his headquarters, the guard recently acquired four brand new
U.S.-made armored vehicles worth an estimated $100,000 each.

“It is no secret that (Abbas) is arming himself for a
confrontation with his rivals,” said a veteran of Israel’s Shin
Bet security service, which helped CIA-led efforts in the 1990s
to bolster then-President Yasser Arafat’s forces against Hamas.

Palestinian security sources say Hamas is also buying more
weapons and training more fighters in the West Bank, where
Fatah forces have long been dominant.

The government is under a Western financial embargo aimed
at forcing Hamas to recognize Israel and renounce violence.

But Hamas has been able to smuggle weapons and tens of
millions of dollars and euros through the Egyptian border with
Gaza, Israeli intelligence sources said.

PRICE RISES

In Gaza, where it has enough guns, Hamas has been buying up
bullets, Palestinian security sources said.

Arms dealers and an Israeli military source said black
market bullets were now selling for $1 each — a steep price in
areas where up to half the people live on less than $2 per day.

In the West Bank, Hamas has been buying M-16 rifles.
Dealers said heavy demand and a lack of supply have sent prices
soaring to as much as $13,000 each, up from $5,400 a year ago.

At the border with Gaza, Israeli forces say militants have
acquired hundreds of anti-tank missiles.

While the arsenals of the forces have been growing, they
have also increased recruitment.

In a deal to try to calm tension in Gaza, the government
agreed to pull a new 3,000-strong militia loyal to Hamas from
the streets, but the force will remain in limited locations.

Militants from Abbas’s Fatah movement, trounced by Hamas in
January elections, deployed a new force of 2,500 men in the
West Bank city of Jenin last weekend. They plan to put another
1,000-member force on the streets of Ramallah.

“We have received information from high levels that we have
to get united, we have to organize ourselves,” said a senior
militant from Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Fatah is distributing weapons to some local offices to help
protect officials and property, sources in the group said.

“It (the situation) is not only delicate, it is also
dangerous,” said Mustafa Barghouthi, an independent Palestinian
lawmaker. “People are not only worried, they’re angry. They are
angry at this polarization.”

(Additional reporting by Wael al-Ahmed in Jenin, Nidal
al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Wafa Amr and Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah,
Dan Williams in Jerusalem)