Ramallah - A group of Hamas militants tracked the movements of Mahmoud Abbas with the "clear" intention of assassinating the Palestinian president, senior sources in Abbas' Fatah party told an Israeli newspaper Friday. The Hamas members were caught with weapons, maps and photographs of senior officials in Abbas' West Bank-based administration, which showed he and others had been under surveillance, the sources told Haaretz.
The Hamas members belong to a West Bank cell whose arrest was announced by Palestinian Authority (PA) Secretary-General Tayeb Abdel Rahim in a news conference in Ramallah on Monday.
Palestinian security officials would not comment on the Haaretz claim that Abbas himself had been among the cell's targets. They told the German Press Agency that the investigation against the Hamas cell was ongoing and they were unable to discuss the case until its completion.
Hamas, the Islamist movement ruling Gaza, and Fatah, the secular party of Abbas, have been locked in an at-times-bloody power struggle.
The rivalry erupted after Hamas unexpectedly beat Fatah in 2006 parliamentary elections. It peaked in 2007, when Hamas violently seized sole control of Gaza by storming the headquarters of Abbas' Fatah-dominated security forces throughout the strip.
The sides have been holding Egyptian-mediated talks in Cairo, in a bid to reconcile their differences and allow new elections to take place by January 2010.
"Hamas' intention was to scuttle the reconciliation talks in Cairo and to create chaos in the West Bank, in contrast to the sense of security that has characterized the territory for the past two years," Fatah spokesman Fahmi Zarir told Haaretz.
Sources in Abbas' West Bank administration, speaking on condition of anonymity to Haaretz, charged that his security sources have detailed confessions in which the suspects acknowledged planning to assassinate several PA officials and stated they were observing Abbas' movements.
A spokesman for Hamas' military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has denied the allegations. The movement charged that a group within Fatah was fabricating allegations against Hamas in a bid to damage its reputation and justify ongoing arrests of its members in the West Bank.
Hamas noted the arrests were announced on the same day of a session in Cairo and claimed that the announcement was a bid to undermine the reconciliation dialogue.
Abbas himself had confirmed in an interview earlier this week that his security forces had arrested a Hamas cell which had been planning to attack senior officials in his administration. He did not mention in the interview that he was among those being followed by the cell.
According to Hamas, more than 900 of its members are currently detained by Abbas' security forces in the West Bank, after more than 100 were arrested over the last few days alone.
Fatah for its part says that Hamas is holding more than 500 of its members in its prisons in Gaza, arresting more than 270 Fatah supporters in the Strip over the past days.
Mutual promises by the rival Palestinian camps to release each other's prisoners as part of the reconciliation attempts have come to nought.
Tensions in the West Bank have risen since three officers of Abbas' security forces, two Hamas gunmen and a house owner were killed in a shoot-out in the city of Qalqilya in late March.
Observers say Abbas' continues to crack down against Hamas in the West Bank amid lingering fears its militants may stage a "coup" in that territory similar to its take-over of Gaza in June 2007.
