Fatah members train Hamas police forces

Security officials on the payroll of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization have been training Hamas police units in the Gaza Strip, WND has learned.

The information comes as the US recently announced large sums of aid to Fatah and initiated military training programs for West Bank Fatah militias purportedly to back Abbas' group against Hamas and to isolate Hamas in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Hamas in recent weeks initiated a training program for the terror group's newly formed street police forces in the Gaza Strip. Last week, Hamas' Al Aqsa television broadcast footage of the new program's first graduating class of about 90 policemen. According to Hamas leaders, hundreds more policemen are currently being trained.

Top sources in Hamas' military wing told WND the police program is being run in part by a "handful" of Fatah officers who still receive salaries from Fatah and who are still publicly identified as Fatah members. The Fatah members are training Hamas police forces quietly, the Hamas sources said.

Switching sides  

The sources said the police trainers also consist of "dozens" of former Fatah security officers who switched over to Hamas after the terror group took over the Gaza Strip and seized US-backed Fatah security compounds in June. Those trainers now openly work for Hamas.

Hamas' police chief in Gaza, Tawfiq Jaber, is a former Fatah police chief in the territory.

Thousands of Fatah militia members, including police forces, received US training over the past few years in the West Bank city of Jericho, where America and the European Union run training programs for Fatah fighters.

Since Hamas sized power in Gaza it has reportedly worked to quickly establish a military and police units. Hamas officials claimed yesterday their terror group now has an active military of 20,000 armed men; a naval unit established last month; and the new police forces.

Reprinted with the permission of WorldNetDaily