RAMALLAH, 1 April 2005 — Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas ordered yesterday a crackdown on wayward militants after gunmen opened fire at his West Bank headquarters in another sign of the chaos dogging the occupied territories.
Gunmen from a radical group loosely affiliated to the ruling Fatah party fired a volley of bullets into the air inside the courtyard of the Palestinian leadership compound known as the Muqata in Ramallah after being ordered off the premises.
Furious at being ejected from the compound where they had been living for months, the militants ran riot through the streets, firing bursts of automatic weapon fire and damaging several restaurants, forcing a shopping center to close.
A spokesman for the gunmen said Abbas expelled a group of militants from his West Bank headquarters who had been given refuge by Yasser Arafat.
Abbas ordered the 26 out after half a dozen of the gunmen — from his ruling Fatah faction — fired at his Muqata compound overnight while he was inside and then rampaged through the city, damaging shops. No casualties were reported.
The 26, on an Israeli wanted list of 70 members of the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, had defied his demands to lay down their arms under peace moves he had agreed with Israel.
The flare-up in Ramallah began after security commanders met representatives of the 70 earlier in the week to press them to put aside their weapons.
Abbas had allowed the 26 to stay at his headquarters after Arafat’s death in November despite Israeli criticism.
The spokesman said all the gunmen had left the compound on Abbas’ orders and had gone to hiding places in Ramallah, the West Bank’s political and commercial hub. It was not immediately clear if they took their weapons with them.
Faced with yet another embarrassing sign of the rampant unrest in the occupied territories, the Palestinian Authority denounced the group for “sabotaging and attacking security”.
“The Palestinian Authority has taken urgent steps to reestablish security, deal with the perpetrators and protect public property. Units are deployed to prevent any new aggression,” it said.
President Abbas has ordered security agents to “suppress any attempt to harm citizens or their property” and instructed the relevant services to compensate Palestinians who suffered damage in attacks.
“The Palestinian Authority will do everything in its power to prevent such crimes from happening again,” the statement added.
“Such behavior only serves the interests of those against the good of our people. The rule of law must be respected. Those who want to make demands should do so through the appropriate channels,” said Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei. “We are going to take steps to ensure that law and public order are respected,” he told reporters.
Further north, angry Palestinians set fire to tents in which Palestinian security officers were living after the forces opened fire on a Palestinian car that refused to stop at a checkpoint in the West Bank town of Tulkarm.
