Gaza becomes Hamastan, part 1

As most of you know, Hamas has now taken control of Gaza. Rather than write about this prematurely, I decided to wait, see how things were going and check with some of my sources on the ground.

Contrary to what you're reading elsewhere, it's pretty obvious to me that Abbas and Fatah lit the spark for the conflict. The millions of dollars in financial aid and arms obtained from the US made Fatah overconfident that in a struggle with Hamas, they would prevail.

All of Abbas' security forces in Gaza got shiny new toys, courtesy of the US taxpayers and large sums were spent to bribe and arm various Gaza clans to come over to Abbas.

What happened in Gaza was essentially a proxy war,with America supporting Fatah and Iran and Syria supporting Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Hamas had access to weaponry, Republican Guard advisers from Iran and a number of Hamas fighters who openly went to places like south Lebanon and Syria for training via Egypt...who was supposed to be controlling the border.

Abbas received arms and training from the US, coordinated by General Keith Dayton.

The Shin Bet apparently told the US and Dayton numerous times about the influx of arms and fighters into Gaza, but like Abbas, the US was confident that Fatah would prevail. Fatah already had numerical superiority, and with the new US arms and some training, Gaza's Fatah gang leader Mahmoud Dahlan assured General Dayton that Fatah could take on Hamas and win.

At least one of my sources in the Palestinian Authority is certain that Dahlan did that because he was skimming a portion of the aid money, wanted that sweet situation to continue and simply misjudged how effective Hamas was becoming, or their readiness to mix it up if they were pushed.

As the gang violence in Gaza ramped up, what touched off the conflict was an attempted hit by Fatah in Gaza on Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh's house in Gaza City. Once that happened, all bets were off.

Hamas moved quickly, putting its entire force in the field in a lightning offensive. While Fatah had the advantage in numbers, most of Fatah's commanders including Dahlan found reasons to absent themselves from the battle zone and left the command to subordinates..most of whom also left if they could, once they saw which way the wind was blowing. Some of the Fatah commanders were actually attempting to conduct battlefield operations via cellphone from the safety of the West Bank.

The clans Abbas had purchased mainly went over to Hamas once the outcome was no longer in doubt.

The Fatah forces ended up routed by the disciplined Hamas fighters, who put a detailed plan into action, with tactical guidance from their Iranian mentors. Hamas borrowed the old IDF tactic of bisecting the Strip and isolating various pockets, and then cut off and besieged Fatah's forces in the expensive security compounds built for them by the US. Hamas seized the the main north-south highway and the border crossings at Rafah and cut off the re-supply routes to Fatah fighters,which left them futilely pleading with the Fatah bosses in Ramallah for ammunition and water from inside their besieged compounds.

The end came on June 15th, when Abbas' US-built Presidential Compound fell. Once the building was taken , the Fatah Force 17 fighters were dragged away from the building in their underwear, begging for mercy.

Some were killed immediately; others were shot later after Hamas did data searches on Fatah's own computers to identify the people they were after.

Probably the biggest prizes Hamas took over was the American-built headquarters of the Office of General Security at Tel-Awa and the Palestinian General Intelligence center near Gaza port.

Hamas fighters killed the Fatah intelligence officers by shooting them dead at point blank range and mutilating most of the their bodies.

Then they began searching through the files, a priceless record of years worth of documents, computer disks and archives,none of which the Fatah intelligence officers made the slightest attempt to burn or erase.

This is an amazing coup for our enemies. Hamas has taken possession of hundreds of thousands of documents and computer records cataloging the secret operations of Western intelligence services in the Middle East, including records of their dealings with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the UAE. Hamas and their Iranian controllers are now privy to the complete archives of Palestinian undercover links with foreign intelligence services going back decades, with names of spies, collaborators and double agents.

Hamas cannot only use this intel to show how Abbas and Fatah collaborated with Western intelligence services, but Syria and Iran will now have access to years worth of secret intel. They will have a slew of compromising information to hold over the heads of Western leaders and officials, lists of undercover agents, and records of covert operations carried out by the Israeli Mossad, Shin Bet and Military Intelligence, CIA, British MI6 and other Western agencies.And Iran, Syria and Hamas will know where all the bodies are buried, including the names of politicians, including Israelis, who worked secretly with Palestinians on various underground deals.

To top it off, Hamas got hold of a complete collection of SOTA wiretapping and surveillance equipment and sensors in perfect, turn key condition which the CIA and Britain's MI6 stupidly gave Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah.

For it's part, Fatah retaliated on whatever Hamas members and institutions it could find on the West Bank. This involved largely counterproductive moves like shooting a Hamas imam in the legs, arresting any Hamas members Fatah could find and seizing Hamas owned buildings, largely charities and religious buildings.

Hamas itself has been outlawed,and a new `emergency government' appointed by Abbas with no Hamas members. The new Prime Minister is old Arafat apparatchnik Selim Fayad, the former finance minister who's most important qualification is that he's on a first name basis with most of the western donors and their agencies.

In the next part, we'll examine what all this means