The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
40°F
Current Conditions
Overcast clouds
View complete weather report

Color Scheme

Subscribe now

Shots fired near new PLO leader

Bodyguards take away Mahmoud Abbas after gunfire erupted at the tent set up for mourners to gather in memory of Yasser Arafat in Gaza City on Sunday. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Molly Moore and John Ward Anderson Washington Post
Bodyguards take away Mahmoud Abbas after gunfire erupted at the tent set up for mourners to gather in memory of Yasser Arafat in Gaza City on Sunday. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

JERUSALEM – Gunmen stormed into a mourning tent for Yasser Arafat in Gaza City on Sunday night shortly after the arrival of the new leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, firing weapons and setting off a chaotic clash with Palestinian police in which at least two officers were killed, according to witnesses and medical officials.

Bodyguards for Mahmoud Abbas, a former Palestinian prime minister and now successor to Arafat as PLO chief, shoved him to the ground and hundreds of people dived for cover as the gunmen and security forces traded fire, according to witnesses and television footage.

As head of the PLO, Abbas is regarded as the most powerful Palestinian leader following Arafat’s death.

Abbas said later that the clash was not an assassination attempt. Speaking on Palestinian television, he said that “because of the crowdedness at the location, there was anarchy and there was shooting in the air and therefore we requested the people to leave.”

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a Palestinian government spokesman, said it was a “spontaneous” clash between armed groups, not a planned attack.

The incident – coming just three days after Arafat’s death and involving one of the four men who have assumed his responsibilities – underscored widespread Palestinian concerns about violence and lawlessness that could erupt if a power vacuum takes hold. Arafat, who was 75 at his death, groomed no successor.

The Palestinian Authority, which Arafat headed, announced Sunday that elections for its president would take place Jan. 9.

About five minutes after Abbas arrived at the mourning tent in Gaza City, approximately 20 armed men burst into the crowd where he and other senior Palestinian leaders, including former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan, were greeting local officials and residents paying their respects to Arafat, who was buried in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday.

“Abbas and Dahlan are agents for the Americans!” the gunmen shouted, according to footage taken by Associated Press Television News. Some of the gunmen yelled, “No to Abbas! No to Dahlan!”

The gunmen began firing into the air and uniformed Palestinian security guards returned fire as Abbas’ bodyguards pushed him to the ground. Screams filled the air, with hundreds of people seeking cover and overturning white plastic chairs.

Witnesses said the gunmen were from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the mainstream Fatah political movement, of which Abbas in now second in command, the Arab satellite network al-Jazeera and other news outlets reported.