US fears Abbas is politically weak

Washington: A flurry of intelligence assessments has warned that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, the man US policymakers hope can help salvage the Middle East peace process, may not be politically strong enough to achieve that goal, according to US officials.

The assessments have also cautioned that his opponents in Hamas that is being shunned by Abbas, Israel and the United States - will not be easily marginalised.

The White House is now betting that Abbas, replenished by the return of aid from the West and tax revenue withheld by Israel, can create a stable enclave in the West Bank and resume peace negotiations with Israel, a view reiterated on Sunday by national security adviser Stephen Hadley. He said on ABC's This Week that President Bush will publicly discuss "what we are going to do to support [Abbas] ... financially, diplomatically."

The "West Bank first" strategy is the White House's biggest and potentially riskiest policy departure in its dealings with the Palestinian National Authority since it was created in 1994.

Intelligence reports over the past month, since Hamas' seizure of the Gaza Strip effectively split the Palestinian National Authority into two parts, have assessed Abbas' position as vulnerable even in the West Bank. Hamas' popularity has dropped slightly since the split, but a poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research taken a week after the fissure said that Hamas was still more popular than Fatah among more than one-quarter of West Bank Palestinians.

With the de facto help of Israeli troops still in the West Bank, Fatah may be able to purge or at least reduce the Hamas military presence in the West Bank, but Abbas faces a difficult challenge in limiting its political presence, especially in Hebron and Nablus, according to officials who described the intelligence assessments on the condition that they not be named.

The Palestinian president does not control all armed groups, including the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, that are linked to Fatah, and he may not be able to stem all terrorist plots, the intelligence reports have also warned.

"Fatah faces significant challenges in effectively governing the West Bank. Israeli military operations are the major factor restricting Hamas activity, and Abbas can at best influence, not control, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade forces that are the power on the street in several towns," said a senior intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the assessments are classified.