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Iraq Steps Up Arms, Money Transfer to Palestinian Areas
(Ha'aretz) Amir Oren - Iraq has stepped up its attempts to move weapons and financial aid to the Palestinian Authority areas, in an effort to resume terror attacks against Israel. Baghdad's plan is to refocus international attention on the Israeli-Arab conflict and hope for a second front in case of a U.S. attack against Baghdad. The Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front held a rally in Gaza Thursday where financial grants from Saddam Hussein were handed out to 32 families of Palestinian dead. Security sources in Israel expressed disappointment with Mohammed Dahlan's failure to reach an agreement with Hamas to restrain its activists against Israel. According to Gazan sources, Dahlan's loyalists have so far refrained from a head-on clash with the heavily armed Abu Samhadne clan, which controls the drug trade in southern Gaza, and with the two most powerful clans in Rafah, the Abu Taha clan and the Abu Jazir clan. Clan fighting and blood feuds have claimed 75 Palestinian lives in Gaza during the past two years. There are growing reports from Bethlehem, Tulkarm, and Nablus about local Fatah leaders clamping down on Tanzim and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, considered military wings of the Fatah political movement. Reports from Bethlehem say that at least 10 Al-Aqsa operatives have been paid off $300 a piece to commit to ceasing their armed activity. Medical sources are reporting that the lengthy curfews have resulted in illicit use of ambulances as taxis, with the price starting at NIS 50 for a ride inside Ramallah to as much as NIS 1,000 to carry passengers from Nablus to the Allenby Bridge.