Palestinian enforcer faces long odds

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- His followers believe he's the next leader of the Arab world. His enemies, who include Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have stopped trying to kill him -- at least for now.

But for Wednesday's handshake between the prime ministers of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to have a lasting chance for peace, new Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan must do more than survive. He must become the Enforcer. He must crush Palestinian terrorism.

He will have to do so against all odds.

Standing beside President Bush Wednesday at the Aqaba peace summit, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas promised an end to terrorism against Israelis. For Dahlan, the rebellious college kid from Gaza who grew up to be an unusually dapper and feared lawman in the Arab world, the mandate was suddenly crystal clear -- and laid out for everyone to see.

The problem is Dahlan won't crack down on militants in the "rapid, decisive" way the United States would like.

For one thing, Dahlan has always done things his own way. That's arguably the biggest reason he's still alive and the reason he may be able even to dent the terrorist infrastructure here.

For another, Dahlan doesn't yet have the power. Though his goal to end terrorism is unmistakable, far more difficult now are the problems that threaten Dahlan's efforts.

Arafat, the sidelined Palestinian leader, still controls the majority of Palestinians' bone-breaking security forces, and he has armies of potential terrorists waiting at his call.

Dahlan's Preventive Security Service, which is supposed to combat Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Tanzim, the al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and a Rolodex full of other militant Palestinian groups, has been decimated in the West Bank by three years of shelling from Israeli tanks. In the Gaza Strip, it's only slightly better. Preventive forces are at about 30 percent of their full strength.

Israeli forces could also sabotage Palestinian security efforts, critics say, using Dahlan's apparent failure as a reason to kill the peace process when the concessions seem too tough. The possibility seems increasingly real, many say. Israeli military forces continue to pound suspected Palestinian militants, despite Israel's promises to ease tensions and hand over security to Dahlan.

On Thursday -- one day after the peace summit -- Israeli soldiers shot two Hamas activists. The attack was partly to blame for sending cease-fire talks up in smoke between Dahlan and the deadliest militant group.

Finally, in combating terrorism, Dahlan also will have to contend with the ghosts from his reign as head of security in Gaza from 1995- 2002, where he was accused of being too close with militant groups at times, and leading unnecessarily brutal charges against them at others.

He reportedly has had Hamas leaders arrested while they were having sex with their wives, and ordered militants' bodies shaved to disgrace them in their Muslim faith. Dahlan is also believed to have orchestrated covert assassinations of militant financiers. And he was, many say, behind the bombing of a Muslim mosque designed to kill militants.

But no one can entirely prove it. Dahlan operates best in the shadows. And he is clearly setting out again to quiet terrorist groups in secret ways.

On Friday, reports surfaced that Dahlan has begun using money he has received from the United States and Europe to buy rifles and machine guns back from militants, and he has reportedly begun offering a $6,000 signing bonus to militants who leave the al Aqsa brigades to join his security force.

Also Friday, a commander in his Preventive Security Service confirmed that Dahlan has reinvigorated his longstanding ties with the CIA. Beginning June 15, the agency will begin training more than 300 preventive officers in police and counterterrorism procedures.

Dahlan, 41, declined several requests for interviews and has rarely appeared in public since taking on the title of minister for state security affairs under Abbas. But through interviews with college buddies and personal confidantes as well as his party's Fatah commanders, Mideast counterterrorism experts and even men he had shaved bald in prison, a complex character of Dahlan emerges.

No one's sure he can accomplish his goals against terrorism. But if he can't, it's likely no one can.

The Gaza Strip will be the testing ground.

Gaza is where Dahlan grew up as a refugee, was arrested some 10 times, became an outlaw and eventually returned to command the Palestinian Authority's Preventive Security Service from 1995 to 2002.

Dahlan is credited with stopping hundreds of attacks during his tenure with the security service, even as he was criticized by international human rights groups for his methods.

He must prove he can harness that success again and build on it if the peace process stands a chance, American and Israeli officials said.

"He works in invisible ways. His is almost a spiritual leadership," said Ibrahem Ibrach, a political science professor at the al Azhar University in Gaza City.

"Dahlan had a grip on the people. He had the confidence of the people. If he reclaims that, his true power will bear out in the next few weeks."

But his popularity is not what it once was. Support from the United States, Europe and even Israel, to an extent, has weakened his domestic support.

Ehab al Ashqar, who counts himself as one of Dahlan's closest friends, said the way he has been branded as an outsider because of his American support has deeply embarrassed Dahlan, who considers himself among the strongest of Palestinian nationals.

Dahlan was born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza in 1961. It was in college, at al Azhar, that he began to make waves. He helped form the Fatah Youth Organization, and his rebel rousing against Israelis began to build his image.

"He was always there, right in the middle, leading the chants. He wouldn't stop," said Abdalhakim Awad, who was a friend of Dahlan's in college and a co-founder of the youth group.

Dahlan became so well known for starting trouble that Israelis would arrest and imprison him as a preventive measure before holidays and anniversaries. During his time in prison, a combined six years, he learned to speak Hebrew from his Israeli guards. He also speaks fluent English.

In 1987, Israeli forces expelled Dahlan from Gaza, sending him on an odyssey to Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and finally Tunisia, where he continued to coordinate attacks against Israelis.

The young, aggressive Dahlan caught the eye of Arafat, who also was exiled in Tunisia. Arafat took Dahlan under his wing and later rewarded him with the security post in Gaza when the two were allowed to return, following the 1993 Oslo agreement.

After all that, Dahlan became a marked man again by Israelis in 2000. Israeli officials accused him of ordering attacks on Israeli school buses, including one that killed two adults and maimed three children.

Last year, at a press conference after he got into a fight with Arafat, Dahlan changed his message. He lashed out against suicide bombings and violence against Israelis in a speech that some friends said was designed not for a Palestinian audience but to plant his foot on the world stage.

In one of his last public interviews -- long before he was named security chief in April -- Dahlan predicted the road map was doomed to failure.

"I believe that every article of the road map will lead us to three years of chaos and instability," he told the BBC in December.

Dahlan can now help determine if that prediction comes true.

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