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Fatah Gunmen on Rampage in West Bank

[Los Angeles Times] Richard Boudreaux - For much of the last week, Fatah gunmen in black masks have ruled the streets of Nablus, a city of 180,000 in the West Bank, abducting rivals, looting or burning their property, and intimidating elected officials inside the Hamas-run City Hall. Demoralized by Hamas' military defeat of their comrades in Gaza, the gunmen are sowing retribution across the West Bank. Most of the attacks have been carried out by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a decentralized Fatah militia that is nominally loyal to Abbas but acts beyond his control. Like Hamas, it is branded by Israel and the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. In the last week, masked gunmen have arrested or kidnapped 120 Hamas activists across the West Bank. In Nablus, Fatah gunmen have burned or looted 12 businesses and dozens of offices of Hamas politicians and civic organizations, officials said. Ghassan Hamdan, a physician who directs the Nablus branch of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, said, "There is a sense here that things are out of control and anything can happen....Hamas has lost support because of what happened in Gaza, but people are disgusted with what Fatah is doing here."
2007-06-22 01:00:00
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