Saturday, August 15, 2009
AFP - 44 GAZA CITY (AFP) - - A radical sheikh was among 24 people killed and 130 wounded after Hamas police stormed a Gaza mosque when he declared an Islamic emirate in the Palestinian enclave, medics said on Saturday.
The shooting erupted on Friday afternoon following weekly prayers in Rafah, on the Egyptian border, and continued until dawn on Saturday.
"Clashes... between Hamas and an extremist group in the southern Gaza Strip left 24 people dead and at least 130 wounded," a spokesman for the Palestinian emergency services told AFP.
Abdul Latif Musa, identified by an Internet statement from Jund Ansar Allah (Soldiers of the Partisans of God) as its leader, was killed while fighting Hamas forces besieging his house, the interior ministry said.
Witnesses reported a number of explosions there, but it was not clear how the man died. His aide Abu Abdullah as-Suri also died in the house.
Mohammed al-Shamali, the Hamas military chief for southern Gaza, and five policemen were also listed as killed, and 10 police wounded.
A three-year-old Egyptian boy was seriously wounded by a bullet from the fighting across the border, but was said to be recovering on Saturday.
A Hamas spokesman accused Jund Ansar Allah of colluding with elements of the Palestinian Authority security forces driven from Gaza in fierce 2007 fighting that left Hamas in control of the impoverished coastal strip.
Friday's incident was one of the most violent in Gaza since Israel's 22-day offensive over the new year.
Witnesses said that following prayers, Musa announced the formation of the emirate, defying the authority of Hamas which has ruled Gaza's 1.5 million people for the past two years.
"We are today proclaiming the creation of an Islamist Emirate in the Gaza Strip," said Musa, a 47-year-old paediatrician famed for his fiery sermons in Rafah's "Brazil" district calling for application of Islamic sharia law.
US-based monitoring service SITE Intelligence said Jund Ansar Allah announced its allegiance to the "Islamic Emirate in the Heart of Beit al-Maqdis (Jerusalem)" in a message on its website on Friday.
A translation of the statement declared that Abu al-Nur al-Maqdisi (Abdul Latif Musa) was the leader.
Rafah is the Gaza stronghold of the Salafist movement, to which Jund Ansar Allah is said to belong and which is ideologically close to Al-Qaeda.
Jund Ansar Allah seeks the strict enforcement of sharia law and accuses Hamas of being too liberal. It is said to have threatened to burn down Internet cafes and to want greater modesty on Gaza beaches.
Hamas, also Islamist, is itself viewed as fairly puritanical within the framework of diverse Palestinian politics, with secular nationalists at the other end of the spectrum.
Palestinian experts say Jund Ansar Allah consists of a few dozen activists and several hundred sympathisers, and operates primarily in southern Gaza.
In July, the group said Hamas arrested three of its activists and charged them with planting a bomb that wounded 52 people at the wedding of a relative of Mohammed Dahlan, an ex-Gaza strongman of the Fatah group.
The group denied any responsibility and warned of reprisals against Hamas if any of its members were killed.
On Friday evening, the Hamas interior ministry warned that law-breakers would not be tolerated.
"Everyone outside the law and carrying arms in order to spread chaos will be pursued and arrested," a ministry statement said.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesman Tahar al-Nunu said Jund Ansar Allah "has close relations with the former security services."
"It appears that they cooperate with each other in contempt of the law with the aim of spreading instability and insecurity in the Gaza Strip," he added.
"The organisations behind this small group have numerous objectives aimed at weakening Hamas and undermining the Palestinian people."
Nunu's allegation comes amid continuing tensions between Hamas and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, and as Egypt presses efforts to broker reconciliation and a unity government.
The security forces ousted by Hamas were closely linked to Abbas's secular Fatah party.
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