Abbas Annuls Hamas Plan to Create Security Force of Militants

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday issued a decree overturning the Hamas government’s creation of a police force made up mainly of Palestinian militants.

The development deepened the ongoing confrontation between Abbas, who is considered a moderate, and Hamas, the Islamist group that took power last month after winning parliamentary elections in January.

Palestinian Interior Minister Said Siyam, a member of Hamas, announced the creation of the new security force Thursday, saying it would be made up primarily of “resistance fighters” and headed by Jamal abu Samhadana, a wanted militant who is accused of masterminding many attacks on Israelis.

Abu Samhadana’s militant group, the Popular Resistance Committees, is also suspected of carrying out an attack on a U.S. convoy in the Gaza Strip in 2003 that killed three American security guards. No one has been convicted or jailed in the attack, and U.S. officials have complained strenuously to the Palestinian Authority about the handling of the investigation.

The appointment of Abu Samhadana was sharply criticized by both the Bush administration and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Israel has tried to assassinate Abu Samhadana on at least three occasions, and Israeli officials said Friday that his official role would not prevent him from being targeted again. Danny Yatom, a lawmaker who formerly headed the Mossad spy agency, said Abu Samhadana and any member of the Hamas government directly tied to terrorist attacks were legitimate targets for assassination.

“Nobody who deals with terror can have immunity by any means, even if he holds a ministerial portfolio in the Hamas government,” Yatom said in a radio interview.

Another Israeli lawmaker, former Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim, was even more explicit in his threat against Abu Samhadana.

“We have old scores to settle with this murderer,” Boim said on Israel Radio. “He has no immunity, and we will close this account sooner or later.”

Abbas notified Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of his decision to annul the appointment, saying that Siam had made “decisions violating the law” in setting up the new security force.

“All officers, soldiers and security personnel are asked not to abide by these decisions and to consider them null and void,” Abbas said in the letter to Haniyeh, according to the Associated Press.

Control of the Palestinian security forces has been a major source of contention between the Hamas-led government and Abbas, who has urged the militant group to renounce violence and recognize peace accords with Israel.

The Hamas government has also been under increasing financial pressure in the wake of a near-total cutoff of direct aid from the United States and other Western countries.

Abbas left Friday on a trip to Arab states and European countries. Palestinian sources said he would seek aid that would bypass the Hamas government and go directly to humanitarian projects in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and also urge that a way be found to help pay civil servants.

Hamas drew international opprobrium when it refused this week to condemn a suicide bombing carried out by another militant group, Islamic Jihad. The attack, outside a fast-food restaurant in Tel Aviv, killed nine people in addition to the bomber.

Islamic Jihad has been one of the main groups behind almost daily firings of crude homemade rockets from the Gaza Strip to Israel. On Friday, Islamic Jihad said it had fired a more sophisticated Russian-made rocket toward Israel, but the Israeli army said it had no information about such a projectile being launched.