Hamas display points to tensions in government

Hamas deployed security forces in defiance of the president's Fatah party.
BUREIJ REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip (AP) -- A new security force made up of gunmen from militant groups faced off with police outside a refugee camp. In Gaza City, they marched with black T-shirts and black woolen masks, toting submachine guns and grenade launchers, almost daring the veteran police to react.
It was street theater, a least for a while Wednesday. The new force of 3,000 militants, headed by a notorious gunman, represented the most brazen affront yet by the Hamas-led government to moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, coming close to violent confrontation but not crossing the line.
The sudden show of force came hours after two Hamas members were gunned down in mysterious drive-by shootings that the group attributed to Abbas' Fatah Party.
The deployment defied a presidential order and added to tensions that have been rising since Hamas defeated Fatah in legislative elections in January. The power struggle already has spilled over into violence, and the Palestinian territories increasingly appear headed toward a bloody showdown.
In Gaza City
The bulk of the new Hamas force was sent to chaotic Gaza City, where bearded gunmen in black T-shirts and green vests took up positions along the main streets and at busy intersections, near banks and outside ministry buildings and parliament. In one display, dozens of masked gunmen marched in formation through a major square.
Security forces loyal to Abbas rode around Gaza City in jeeps to make their presence felt, but there were no clashes with the Hamas force.
Outside the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, members of the new force stood a few feet away from members of a security branch that answers to Abbas.
And in the southern city of Khan Younis, about 40 members of the new force pulled up to the Education Ministry, jumped from their jeeps and fired in the air to break up a peaceful protest of recent college graduates who want teaching jobs. The teachers were protesting an application fee.
The gunmen moved into the building, where they bludgeoned protesters with clubs and rifles, demonstrators said.
"We were protesting peacefully, and suddenly these gunmen came and assaulted us," said a protester as he applied a bandage to a small gash on his head. "We don't know who they are or why they came here." He identified himself only as Khaled, saying he feared retribution.
Led by bomb maker
The new Hamas force is headed by Jamal Abu Samhadana, a bomb maker wanted by Israel who is suspected of masterminding a deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic convoy in 2003.
Hamas officials said the new force's aim was to bring order to Gaza, where marauding gangs of armed men routinely terrorize citizens. The deployment was ordered after drive-by shootings in Gaza killed two Hamas militants.
There was no claim of responsibility for the drive-by shootings, which came after cars belonging to senior Fatah militants were blown up in Gaza City. But Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri blamed Preventive Security, a force filled with Fatah supporters.
"This is a plan of the Preventive Security to draw Hamas into a civil war and to make the government appear ineffective," al-Masri said.
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