GAZA, 17 September 2004 — Palestinian gunmen kidnapped a top security official and held him for several hours in the Gaza Strip yesterday in a fresh challenge to President Yasser Arafat’s rule amid a wave of unrest.
Brig. Gen. Muhammad Al-Batrawi, an Arafat appointee and chief of financial surveillance for his security apparatus, was released unharmed after being abducted by armed men from the Palestinian leader’s own Fatah movement, witnesses said. Security sources said the kidnappers had voiced grievances over recruitment by security services, the target of demands at home and abroad for broad reforms and a clean-up of corruption.
Unprecedented turmoil has been fueled by a power struggle ahead of a planned Israeli pullout from occupied Gaza and growing disaffection after four years of an uprising that has brought bloodshed but little prospect of a Palestinian state.
In Gaza City, gunmen surrounded a car carrying Al-Batrawi and forced him to follow them to a hideout in the Nusseirat refugee camp. The kidnappers planted bombs in the area outside the house to discourage any rescue attempt. Three hours later, he was freed through intervention by Fatah leaders and security commanders, security sources said.
Al-Batrawi’s unit has been seen as aligned with Arafat, but loyalties have become more murky amid the worst unrest since Palestinians gained a measure of self-rule a decade ago. The struggle broadly pits Arafat’s old guard against younger figures demanding removal of corrupt leaders, greater democracy and an overhaul of a plethora of security forces.
None of the groups has said they want to oust Arafat, a symbol of the struggle for statehood. But unrest has continued despite Arafat’s pledges of reforms. Palestinian areas have been hit in recent months by a spate of kidnappings and gunbattles.
The demands of the reformers widely echo those of the United States and other Western countries, which would rather see a revived Palestinian Authority in charge of Gaza after an Israeli pullout than an Islamist takeover or total anarchy.
