fatah acknowledges aksa brigades link

And these pieces of crap want a state? New name of the state.....Muder Incorporated?

But we'll knock 'em off.....one by one......

Watch and learn world....watch and learn!

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Jun. 15, 2004 0:20
Fatah acknowledges Aksa Brigades link
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH

The Fatah Central Council has decided to form a special committee to study the demands of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades militia. The committee will consist of senior Fatah officials and cabinet ministers.

It is the first time that the Palestinian leadership has acknowledged its responsibility for the armed group.

The decision to form the committee follows complaints by the leaders of the militia that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and the Fatah leadership have abandoned them and were no longer paying them their salaries.

Earlier this week, several members of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank and Gaza Strip embarrassed the Palestinian leadership by threatening to break away from Fatah. The gunmen also accused the Palestinian leadership of corruption.

On Sunday night, Arafat chaired an emergency meeting of the Fatah Central Committee in his office in Ramallah to discuss ways of containing the mutiny by the Fatah militia.

The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, who announced that the Aksa Martyrs Brigades were receiving the full attention of the Palestinian leadership.

He said the most important mission now was to guarantee the safety of the gunmen who are wanted by Israel for carrying out terrorist attacks.

Hani Uwaidah, the commander of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in Tulkarm, told The Jerusalem Post that the PA stopped paying his salary a few months ago.
He said that was the main reason why he and his friends had halted their attacks against Israel.

"The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah told us that we must now sit quiet and that because of pressure from the international community they would not be able to continue paying us our salaries," he added.

Senior PA officials in Ramallah on Monday confirmed that Arafat had invited the Fatah gunmen to join the reformed security services.

Former PA cabinet minister Abdel Fatah Hamayel, who acts as a liaison between Arafat and the fugitives, said the idea of recruiting the gunmen to the Palestinian security forces was not a new one.

Hamayel said there were at least 450 Fatah gunmen in the West Bank and Gaza Strip who had "made many sacrifices for the Palestinian cause."

He added: "After all these sacrifices, we can't tell these men that we don't need their services any more. The Aksa Martyrs Brigades have a big role to play and they are committed to the decisions of the political leadership."

Meanwhile, the commander of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the Jenin area, Zakariya Zubeidi, launched a scathing attack on Fatah leaders and called on them to resign.

Zubeidi, who is wanted by Israel for his role in a series of terrorist attacks, accused the members of the Fatah Central Council of trying to sideline the Aksa Brigades. "They are continuing with their conspiracies against the Aksa Martyrs Brigades and they are trying to stop the funding to us," he said.

Zubeidi said the group had enhanced Fatah's position in the past three years. "Thanks to us, Fatah restored its dignity and power during the intifada," he added. "But now the members of the Fatah Central Council are putting pressure on us to disband. We don't trust them any more and we tell them that they are the ones who must go."

Zubeidi claimed he narrowly escaped an attempt on his life earlier this week when an undercover IDF unit caught up with him in the Jenin refugee camp. He said the soldiers opened fire at him, but hit one of his bodyguards, who was wounded and taken to hospital.

He said he and his colleagues would abide by any cease-fire agreement declared by the various Palestinian factions after Israel leaves the Gaza Strip. However, he threatened that his men would continue to launch attacks against the IDF in the West Bank.