Abbas' strongman talks tough about Hamas

He wears tailored suits and exudes charm, but also calls himself a "street guy" and commands an army of Fatah gunmen. Mohammed Dahlan, the strongman in charge of beefing up the forces loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the power struggle against Hamas, boasts that he is ready to take on the Islamic militants, but stops short of saying how far he is willing to go.

"I will not let anyone from Fatah be killed by Hamas _ no way _ and remain quiet," Dahlan, 45, told a group of foreign reporters he invited to his Ramallah office Friday. "If someone gets killed by Hamas, I am going to confront Hamas. If someone kills someone from Fatah, I have to stand up to them."

Dahlan's outspokenness has made him Hamas' No. 1 enemy, particularly after last month's deadly fighting between Hamas, which controls parliament and the Cabinet, and security forces loyal to Abbas and his Fatah movement.

Hamas has called Dahlan an infidel, traitor and bloodsucker. It has also accused him of leading a plot to topple the Hamas government and alleged he was behind a series of shooting attacks and kidnappings of Hamas politicians in the West Bank, Fatah's stronghold.

Dahlan, who claims Hamas is targeting for assassination, shrugged off the insults and denied he instigated some of the infighting. "They can call me an infidel, they can call me whatever. It really doesn't matter to me," he said Friday, sitting at the head of a conference table and sporting a gray suit and dark tie.

Dahlan's political star has been rising and it is widely expected he will run for president after Abbas retires. A former Cabinet minister and, in the 1990s, head of Gaza's main security service, Dahlan holds no official job now, but is always at Abbas' side, including in meetings with foreign leaders.

Several months ago, Abbas asked Dahlan to try to unify splinter groups of Fatah gunmen, many of whom were locked in personal rivalries. Dahlan succeeded, according to Fatah activists, by using his street credentials _ he grew up poor in a Gaza refugee camp _ and by spending large amounts of cash provided by the movement. During a recent visit to Jenin, two rival militia chiefs from Fatah flanked Dahlan during a rally, an apparent sign they had put their enmity aside.

Dahlan also plays a key role in revamping the security forces loyal to Abbas, including the 3,500-strong Presidential Guard, which is seen as the bulwark against Hamas should a full-fledged civil war erupt. Hamas' own militia, the so-called Executive Force, has 5,000 gunmen and is expanding quickly.

President Bush has asked Congress to approve $83 million in aid to Abbas' security forces. U.S. officials insist the money will only be spent on non-lethal equipment such as uniforms, communications and trucks. On Thursday, the top U.S. security official in the region, Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, refused comment when asked whether the aid was further fueling Hamas-Fatah tensions.

Dahlan denied Hamas allegations that the U.S. aid is part of a plot against the government.

"All the lies that you have been hearing, that the security force is going to overthrow Hamas, and that the whole purpose is to get rid of Hamas, these are all simply lies," he said. However, he also said that "we will prevent Hamas from continuing to use these militias." He did not say how.

Dahlan has a bitter history with Hamas. In his 20s, he quickly rose through the ranks of Fatah and in 1994, after several years in exile with the late Yasser Arafat, returned to his native Gaza to be appointed head of the feared Preventive Security Service.

In 1996, he led an Arafat-ordered crackdown on Hamas, including arrests of the group's leaders, in response to a series of suicide bombings that threatened to derail an interim peace deal with Israel.

Dahlan supports a two-state solution to the Mideast conflict and has been involved in most of the negotiations with Israel in the past decade. The failure of Arafat and Abbas to reach a peace deal with Israel and establish a Palestinian state has badly hurt Fatah's popularity and, along with the party's blatant corruption, led to Hamas' election victory.

Dahlan was one of just a few Fatah leaders to win their Gaza districts in the 2006 parliament election. He is now trying to restore the pride of demoralized Fatah supporters and said the party is slowly recovering. In Gaza earlier this month, he organized a rally of tens of thousands, the largest since Arafat's triumphant return from exile.

Asked about his appeal, he said people see him as an ordinary guy.

"They respect me. I respect them. I am a son of the streets," he said, then added, laughing: "Ignore the suit that you see me in."