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The former leader of Fatah in Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan, has been living in exile in the United Arab Emirates for the past 10 years, where he has become a successful businessman. Born in the Palestinian coastal enclave, Dahlan is a powerful financial force in Gaza and an influential figure in the wider region – if Hamas fell, could he return to power?

Former senior PLO official Mohammed Dahlan is suing Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for malicious persecution. Dahlan, a personal nemesis of the chairman, was removed from all his positions in the organization two years ago. Now he claims that Abbas is after him for publicly exposing the corruption of the chairman and of his offspring. Dahlan is pushing an assortment of lawsuits in various European courts, according to Kol Israel, revolving around his charge that some $700 million are missing from the PA treasury. Dahlan, who used to be head of the PLO Gaza Preventive Security Force, and participated in...

Estranged Fatah leader Farouk Kaddoumi is demanding an inquiry into the fate of $2b. that allegedly went missing after the death of former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat, sources close to Kaddoumi said over the weekend. Kaddoumi, who is based in Tunis, has long been at loggerheads with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and most of the Fatah leaders in Ramallah. The sources quoted Kaddoumi as saying that at least five top Fatah leaders were responsible for the disappearance of the $2b., but did not name them. Kaddoumi's charges came amid growing turmoil in Fatah, which is witnessing renewed bickering between...

A leaflet distributed over the weekend by a hitherto unknown group called Fatah – The Reformist Path called for replacing the Palestinian leadership and threatened to liquidate Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and many of his top aides. It's not clear who stands behind the leaflet, but some senior PA officials have pointed a blaming finger at former security minister Muhammad Dahlan. They said that when Arafat saw the leaflet, he cancelled a meeting planned with Dahlan last week. Dahlan has strongly denied responsibility for the leaflet, arguing that it was yet another attempt by his rivals to drive a...

Violent protests against corruption and nepotism in Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, and the threatened resignation of his prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, have forced Mr Arafat to back off from putting a relative in charge of Gaza’s security forces... Arafat is feeling the wrath of his own people, who have become increasingly frustrated at the corruption, nepotism and sheer uselessness of his crumbling regime.... Arafat has for months been resisting pressure from America, Egypt, the United Nations and other powers to merge and revamp the PA’s 12 overlapping, ineffectual and mutually hostile security forces, and to put them under the...

The Palestinians have to elect a new leadership, the former head of the Palestinian security services Mohammed Dahlan said in an interview with the Canadian Globe and Mail published Saturday. Dahlan is seen as one of the few people who could unseat Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat, the paper said. "The Palestinian people are looking for a way out," Dahlan said in the interview this week. "They are looking for a Palestinian leadership to take them to this exit." "Our experience together - the international community, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, the States - has really failed, finally," Dahlan said. "To be...

Indonesian police have arrested a man suspected of being implicated in the deadly Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta in August 2003, a local daily reports. The Kompas daily quotes East Java Police Chief Inspector General Firman Gani as saying the man, 'Dahlan', was arrested in the East Java town of Ngawi on Thursday. "There was an arrest, of a suspect of that bombing. It was made by a team from the national police headquarters in the territorial jurisdiction of the East Java police," he said. The hotel attack is blamed on the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah regional terror network, which is...

Oct. 16, 2003 Suspect of smuggling weapons 'commissioned by PA' arrested By JPOST.COM STAFF On Thursday, the Shin Bet released for publication its arrest of a PA security official suspected of smuggling ammunition from Egypt to Gaza Strip, allegedly for such high ranking officials as former PA security minister Muhammad Dahlan. The man, Akhram Tubassi, a member of the Palestinian Coast Guard, was detained by the Shin Bet on October 7th. He confessed to purchasing weapons in Egypt, commissioned by senior officials of the PA security system. The connection to Dahlan is still under investigation. To smuggle the weapons, Tubassi...

Oct. 13, 2003 Report: US seeking Arafat ouster with 'ill health' as reason By JPOST.COM STAFF The US is hoping for removal of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat by a "non-violent" coup presaged by a report suggesting Arafat is so ill he cannot carry out his duties, according to a report in the Saudi newspaper Al Watan. US officials are already trying to organize a joint Palestinian leadership that would rule until elections are held in the Palestinian Authority, the Saudi paper reported Monday. A translation of the report appeared on the Jordanian website albawaba.com The Saudi daily said recent reports...

Dahlan: Some militant groups have gone too farFormer security minister slams tactics of Al-Aqsa intifada Fadi Chahine and Rana KhouryDaily Star Staff BEIRUT: The Palestinians might not have had another option, but to take up arms in their independence war. But according to a top security lieutenant, Mohammed Dahlan, some groups went too far, dealing a severe blow to the Palestinian image abroad. “Resorting to armed violence in certain phases of the Palestinian intifada the way it was done in the past three years proved to be detrimental for our national struggle,” Dahlan, former minister of state for security affairs...

<p>RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Yasser Arafat's Fatah party on Saturday put together a new Palestinian Cabinet, replacing a U.S.-backed security chief with an Arafat loyalist and bringing in nearly a dozen new faces from Fatah and smaller factions.</p> <p>With the ouster of security chief Mohammed Dahlan, it appears even less likely that the Palestinian security forces will begin dismantling militant groups, as required by the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan. Israel has said it will not move on the plan unless such action is taken.</p>

The US is putting pressure on the Palestinian Authority to include outgoing Security Minister Muhammad Dahlan and Information Minister Nabil Amr in the new cabinet of Prime Minister-designate Ahmed Qurei. PA officials said the Americans have made it clear that they would like to see Dahlan and Amr serving in key positions in Qurei's cabinet. Last week, US special envoy to the Middle East John Wolf warned that Washington would not deal with a cabinet that is fully controlled by PA Chairman Yasser Arafat. Dahlan and Amr are closely associated with former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned earlier this...

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat reacted angrily Saturday to an Israeli raid in the West Bank that killed three Palestinians, saying the violence threatens the peace process. Two of those killed in Friday's raid on a bomb lab by Israeli troops were members of the Islamic militant group Hamas. An Israeli soldier also was killed. The firefight marred a period of relative calm since Palestinian militants declared a unilateral cease-fire June 29. "Israel is not only violating the truce it is also destroying the whole peace process," Arafat said Saturday from his headquarters in the West Bank. Troops were searching for...

Question by Laurence McQuillan, USA TODAY: Mr. President, you've been involved now in the Mideast peace process, and have certainly learned firsthand how developments like creation of a fence can complicate progress. Based on that, when you stood there about a year ago and proposed your road map, you spoke about a Palestinian state in 2005. Do you think that goal is still realistic, or is it likely to slide just because it's so hard to make headway? US President George W. Bush: I do think it's realistic. I also know when we start sliding goals, it makes progress less...

The PA has begun transferring dozens of wanted terrorists to Jericho, with Israel's consent. They will not be imprisoned, but the PA has promised to ensure that they will not perpetrate attacks. Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz will meet this evening with Muhammad Dahlan to discuss preparations for Israel's upcoming withdrawal from two cities - apparently Jericho and Kalkilye. Mofaz will insist once again that the PA begin its war against terrorism, as it promised to do several weeks ago but has not yet undertaken. The Yesha Council called on Mofaz not to transfer security control of the above two cities...

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz is scheduled to meet Wednesday with Palestinian Minister for State Security Mohammad Dahlan to discuss the handing over to the Palestinian Authority security responsibility for two additional Palestinian cities, Israel Radio reported. The two cities are presumed to be Jericho and Qalqilya.

Palestinian Authority Minister of State for Security Muhammad Dahlan warned that the prisoner release issue would destroy the hudna and the positive feeling following his and PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas's US visit, if Israel continues to refuse to coordinate with the PA the names of those it plans to release. His comments came as the US administration welcomed Israel's decision to free some 540 Palestinian prisoners, including 210 affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Dahlan said Israel included 120 petty criminals not security and political prisoners in the list of Palestinians slated for release from Israeli prisons. "If they...

(Israeli Defense Minister Shaul) Mofaz: No more pullouts until action against terror HERB KEINON and DAVID RUDGE Jul. 11, 2003 Israel will not withdraw from additional cities until the Palestinian Authority takes concrete steps against the terrorist infrastructure in Bethlehem and the Gaza Strip areas already under their control Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told his PA counterpart, Muhammad Dahlan, at a meeting at Erez on Thursday night. The meeting lasted for two and a half hours with the two locked in a room alone for most of the time. Israel is also unlikely to release any more Palestinian prisoners until...

21:13 PA Minister Dahlan calls for release of 416 prisoners serving long sentences in Israel, says they pushed for [hudna]

Israel and the Palestinian Authority reached an agreement Friday for an IDF pullback in the Gaza Strip and a transferal of security control to the Palestinians, during a meeting between Palestinian Minister for Security Mohammed Dahlan and Israel's coordinator in the territories, Major General Amos Gilad. Officers in the field from both sides will meet Sunday to finalize details and the pullout from Gaza is estimated to begin as soon as Monday, sources in Jerusalem said. The meeting will focus on arrangements for the movement of vehicles on the main "Tancher" highway that bisects the northern and southern Strip; the...