Arafat loyalists view succession favorite with suspicion

NABLUS, West Bank: Mahmoud Abbas may be the establishment's choice to become the new head of the Palestinian Authority but fighters who were loyal to Yasser Arafat view him with suspicion and contempt.

Former premier Abbas, who is hot favorite to be voted the second president of the PA in a Jan. 9 election, has established a reputation as a moderate by arguing that there can never be a military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But such talk is anathema to the foot soldiers of the four-year intifada such as members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

According to Nasser Khatib, a leader of the movement in the main northern West Bank town of Nablus, Abbas is totally unsuited to pick up Arafat's mantle as leader of the struggle for Palestinian statehood.

Khatib says he is furious with Abbas for moving into Arafat's seat with unseemly haste and for "betraying" his principles.

"The other day he took [Arafat's] seat at a meeting. Arafat had only been dead for three days," he said from a hideout in Nablus' Balata refugee camp. "Abu Mazen is not our president, at least for now. The picture filled us with rage."

A spokesman for the Brigades said Tuesday that the movement wanted the jailed West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti rather than Abbas to head up the Palestinian Authority.

Barghouti, seen as the inspiration behind the intifada, is serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail, but that has enhanced rather than dimmed his reputation among hard-liners.

"He deserves all our respect. We share [with him] the same conviction about the need to press on with the intifada to put an end to the occupation," said Khatib.

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