Papers will embarrass Abbas, Hamas says

By Dion Nissenbaum
McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

Contributed by Lucia

"GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Hamas leaders who seized control of the Gaza Strip last month say they've uncovered intelligence files that indicate that the Palestinian Authority was gathering information on Pakistan's nuclear program, storing sexual photographs of Palestinian leaders and tracking Islamist forces in other parts of the Middle East.

Hamas says that the rival Fatah party led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was spying on behalf of the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies, and that the pictures were used to blackmail Palestinian leaders.....

Hamas said the documents were among hundreds of files its fighters seized last month when they stormed the centers of power in Gaza, including intelligence offices and security headquarters.

Now, on the eve of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's latest diplomatic attempt to marginalize Hamas, the Islamist party is preparing to release selected documents in a bid to discredit Abbas and his Fatah allies.

Over the weekend, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar allowed a McClatchy Newspapers reporter to briefly view a few of documents pulled from a thick file with a Palestinian Authority logo. Several appeared to be memos, but it was impossible to determine if the documents were authentic.

Among the documents Zahar showed were three memos from the past nine months. One from last November states that Palestinian Authority sources were investigating Islamist forces in Yemen. A second from this past spring mentions the kidnapping of a Libyan citizen in Egypt. And the third from this spring talks about Palestinian sources collecting information on Pakistan's nuclear program.

"They became spies, collaborators with Western intelligence and collaborators against Palestinian interests," Zahar charged.....

Yousef boasted that Hamas also had captured enough new weaponry that it wouldn't have to buy them on the black market any longer. "Now we don't have to worry about smuggling guns," Yousef said. "We have enough M-16s and RPGs.""