Israel Matzav

The threats have prompted PA security forces to take strict measures to guarantee the safety of the leaders, including PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, whose villa in Ramallah has been completely cordoned off.

The latest measures were taken after a hitherto unknown group calling itself al-Tawhid and Jihad [Unification and Holy War] distributed leaflets in the Gaza Strip threatening to kill a number of senior officials belonging to Abbas's Fatah party.

This is the first time that the group, which is believed to be headed by Jordanian arch-terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi, has issued a leaflet in Gaza, indicating that al-Qaida elements had begun operating in the area.

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The leaflet specifically mentioned the names of five Abbas loyalists who it said would soon be "slaughtered" as apostates: Muhammad Dahlan, Yasser Abed Rabbo, Samir Mashharawi, Nabil Amr and Abu Ali Shaheen.

"We hereby declare that we have begun operating in Palestine," the leaflet said, heaping praise on Zarqawi and al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. "We have deiced to revive the sunnah [one of the sources of Islamic jurisprudence] of slaughter against these people to avoid dissension."

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"Hamas does not have any links with al-Qaida," said PA cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad. [Oh really? CiJ] Other Hamas leaders claimed that Fatah was planning to assassinate some of their members, pointing out that Fatah gunmen had issued threats against senior Hamas representatives in the past few weeks.