"President Mahmoud Abbas has asked Israel for permission to bring Palestinian forces based in Jordan to the West Bank to try to shore up his control after Hamas's Gaza takeover, Israeli officials said on Tuesday......
"The Palestinians put in a request yesterday to transfer the Badr Brigade from Jordan to the West Bank," a senior Israeli government official told Reuters. "It is being evaluated and a decision will be made soon.".....Abbas's prime minister, Salam Fayyad, would neither confirm nor deny any plans to deploy Badr. He told Reuters in the West Bank: "I cannot really comment on that for the time being.".
Israel wants Abbas to do more to rein in gunmen and has been considering providing his forces with additional weapons. Abbas issued a decree on Tuesday banning Palestinians in the West Bank from carrying illegal weapons or explosives, in a step toward meeting Israeli and Western demands to disarm armed groups.....
Analysts say Badr is Fatah's best-trained and best-equipped fighting force, aside from Abbas's Presidential Guard. Badr is considered to be more loyal to Fatah than other forces. It also has strong ties to the Jordanian king.
The US security coordinator between Israel and the Palestinians, Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton, has yet to take a public position on a Badr deployment in the West Bank."
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