[pnews-news] Al-Qaeda goes recruiting in festering Gaza

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2125228,00.html

The Sunday Times April 09, 2006
Al-Qaeda goes recruiting in festering Gaza Marie Colvin, Gaza

THE festering refugee camp of Khan Yunis, where the stench of sewage hangs 
over potholed dirt roads and concrete blockhouses crowded with 270,000 
Palestinians, has long been fertile soil for radical groups such as Hamas 
and Islamic Jihad. Now there are growing indications it is also becoming a 
breeding ground for Al-Qaeda. Palestinian security officials claim to have 
growing evidence that Osama Bin Laden?s terror network, which has hitherto 
shown little interest in Gaza and the West Bank, is recruiting among the 
angry young men who see little beyond a future of attacking Israel.

The organisation has been helped by the lawlessness that has engulfed the 
Palestinian territories since Hamas emerged as the surprise winner of 
parliamentary elections on January 25 and formed a government.

?There is such despair in Gaza: some are ready to sacrifice anything and 
this creates fertile soil for growing Al-Qaeda,? said Ashraf Juma, a 
former Fatah fighter who spent 18 years in Israeli prisons and is now a 
Palestinian legislator representing Rafah ? a city that like nearby Khan 
Yunis is an ideal recruitment area.

?They support Al-Qaeda because they are angry at the American support for 
Israel and they see Al-Qaeda hurting the Americans. We have a proverb to 
describe this: ?The enemy of my enemy is my friend?.?

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, has 
denounced Hamas for taking part in elections under Israeli occupation and 
claimed that Palestinians had ?other choices? ? taken as a reference to 
his organisation.

Analysts believe that, as its fortunes wane in Iraq, Al-Qaeda thinks some 
form of coup in Gaza or the West Bank could help it increase support 
across the Middle East, where the fate of the Palestinians is a symbol of 
the wider Arab cause.

Any group that wants to fight will have no problem finding weapons; Gaza 
is awash with guns. Hamas?s policy on rooting out Al-Qaeda is 
contradictory. Security forces charged with tracking down the organisation 
have no guidelines and Hamas has said it will not arrest anyone resisting 
Israel. Meanwhile police officers have not been paid for March and there 
is scant prospect of any wages arriving soon.

?No one knows what is the security policy of the interior minister,? said 
Samir Masharawi, head of Fatah in Gaza, who liaises between the various 
Palestinian factions and hopes he will not have to add Al-Qaeda to his 
list.

?Hamas?s main strategy has been resistance and jihad, and now they are the 
government, they are embarrassed to say we should arrest those who are 
making attacks (on Israel).?

Even he is worried; the interview, conducted in his house, was punctuated 
by the sound of shells fired into Gaza by Israeli tanks just across the 
border.

The treasury is empty: Hamas needs £68.8m to pay 140,000 government 
workers. The Americans, Canadians and Europeans have cut funding to try to 
pressure the organisation into moderating its outright rejection of an 
Israeli state.

The lack of direction from the top was a cause of black humour at Gaza?s 
central police station last week, where they joked that the only word they 
had heard from Said al-Siyam, the new interior minister, was that they 
should grow beards.

The laughter stopped when gunfire erupted all around: I was hustled inside 
while police fired back at their assailants, only to shout ?stop firing? 
when they realised they were fellow policemen. ?We have other things to 
worry about, as you see,? said Abdul Rahman, an officer.

It is almost impossible to underestimate the extent of the lawlessness 
that now reigns. Last month two families went to war over a donkey that 
kicked and damaged a car. The death toll had reached six by the time they 
ended their feud.

It is difficult to get concrete answers on policy from Hamas beyond 
details such as the beard directive. In an interview over cups of sweet 
coffee, Ismail Haniya, the prime minister and supposed moderate face of 
the party, said he wanted to focus on civil affairs such as disorder and 
tribal conflicts. But there was no public budging from Hamas?s refusal to 
recognise Israel, although privately the organisation has conceded that it 
could negotiate on the basis of the borders of 1967, when Israel seized 
the West Bank and Gaza, but it needs time to win over its members.



Would Hamas agree to a two-state solution? ?Before we negotiate with 
Israel, we need to know on what basis,? he said. ?We want a Palestinian 
state, with Jerusalem as its capital.? Even the translator was foxed. Did 
that mean Hamas agreed to a two-state solution? ?I didn?t say that.? 
Haniya was clear, however, in his denunciation of the West. ?The decisions 
taken by the American administration and the West have only one aim, to 
blackmail our government.?

While Hamas fiddles, the clock is ticking in Israel. Ehud Olmert, the new 
prime minister, has made it clear that unless Hamas recognises Israel and 
renounces violence he will largely withdraw from the West Bank, while 
setting borders that run deep into the occupied territory to take in large 
Jewish settlements.

There is predictable schadenfreude among members of the former Fatah 
administration, who were constantly undermined by Hamas?s attacks on 
Israel before the group took over the administration.

?Hamas is acting as if it is isolated on the moon and can keep two 
identities, government and opposition,? said Rashid abu Shabak, a Fatah 
leader appointed last week by President Mahmoud Abbas, despite Hamas?s 
furious objections, as security director for the West Bank and Gaza. 
?Hamas jumped overnight from being the group that attacked Israel to the 
government that has to arrest people who do that.?

In the meantime, as the occupied territories slip deeper into chaos, Yusef 
al-Siam, the preventive security chief of Rafah, is worried that he has 
less to do.

Had his work become more difficult as the situation deteriorates? ?I?m 
less busy,? he said. ?I used to arrest Hamas. Now they?re the government.?

Eight Palestinian militants were killed in two separate airstrikes by 
Israeli forces in Gaza yesterday.






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