Unknown group accuses Al-Najah professor of being "mouthpiece" for Iran; claim car burning

Date: 26 / 01 / 2009  Time:  10:27
Nablus – Ma’an –

A previously unknown Palestinian group calling itself the “Gaza Martyrs Brigades” claimed on Monday to have vandalized and destroyed the car of Al-Najah professor of political science Abdus Sattar Qassem.

Qassem’s car was burned after unknown attackers threw what was believed to be a Molotov cocktail in the vehicle while it was parked outside the professor’s home. Qassem is affiliated with Hamas, and many feared the attack to have been politically motivated.

Several letters of condemnation were released following the attack.

The group released a statement describing Dr. Qassem as a “mouthpiece for the Iranian and the Syrian regimes.”

The statement accused the professor of “urging students to stage a coup against the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and against members of the Palestine Liberation Organization.” The statement further alleged that Qassem “calls on Hamas affiliates to assault Fatah loyalists in the Gaza Strip.”

The unknown group then threatened “Hamas figures in Nablus,” saying that if they remain silent towards the attacks on Fatah affiliates in the Gaza Strip, they will be considered partners in the attacks.

Hamas: Abbas's security apparatuses' shameful acts exceeded all limits

[ 25/01/2009 - 04:42 PM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)--

The Hamas Movement in the West Bank strongly denounced the transgressions of ex-PA chief Mahmoud Abbas's security apparatuses in Al-Khalil, saying that their outrageous acts exceeded all limits and their complicity with the Israeli occupation would remain an unforgivable blot.

In a statement received by the PIC, Hamas said that Abbas's security apparatuses had waged, since the start of the Israeli aggression, a frenzied campaign of arrests in the ranks of its cadres in Al-Khalil against the backdrop of events organized by the Movement in solidarity with the Gaza Strip.

Hamas added that 50 of its supporters had been kidnapped since the aggression including former deportees to Marj Al-Zouhour, prisoners released from Israeli jails, mosque imams, teachers and students.

Hamas highlighted that since Israel waged its aggression on Gaza, these security apparatuses had dedicated their efforts for one purpose which is to prevent any attempt to spark a third Intifada in the West Bank in compliance with Israel's orders.

Abbas's security apparatuses kidnapped on Saturday five Palestinian citizens from Al-Khalil and the towns of Beit Kahil and Idna, west of the city, in the context of the political arrest campaign against Hamas cadres in the West Bank, Palestinian sources reported.

According to the sources, 40 other citizens received summonses to be present in the preventive security headquarters in Al-Khalil.

The number of Palestinians still detained by Abbas's security has reached more than 100 citizens so far.   In another development, PA security elements at noon Sunday dispersed by force a peaceful sit-in staged by relatives of political detainees in Abbas's jails. Witnesses said that more than 100 women, mothers and relatives of those detainees, were beaten and forced out of the vicinity of the Mukata the main security building in Al-Khalil. Two women suffered from fractures and were hospitalized while female policemen detained one of the participants and held her in the Mukata building. The security apparatuses kidnapped 25 citizens of Hamas supporters over the past two days in Al-Khalil district.