A PROFILE OF THE PLO FORCES
The following breakdown of Palestinian Authority security forces is by no means comprehensive. In response to repeated inquiries from the Digest, the PA's Information Ministry finally replied:
"Regarding your inquiry about the number of the Palestinian security services, and the number of the members in each service, we are sorry that we can not provide you with such information since it is not available."
Advised to contact various services directly, the Digest did so, but received no response.
Palestinian National Security Forces:
The title alone makes a mockery of the claim that Arafat's men in uniform are policemen, rather than soldiers. The force is commanded by Major-General Nasser Yusef, who has been named various titles in media reports, including Palestinian Police Chief, Security Police Chief, Security Forces Commander and Director of Public Security.
General Intelligence Service:
Also known as the General Security Service, this branch is headed by Major-
General Amin Al-Hindi, who was involved in planning the 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich.
Military Intelligence:
It's hard to justify the need for a unit named "military intelligence" in a supposedly
demilitarised administration, but there it is. Headed by General Mousa Arafat, a distant relative of the PLO chairman, MI was embarrassed in early February when its commanding officer in Nablus, Colonel Hani Ayad, was arrested following the alleged murder by torture of a local businessman, Yousef Al Baba, in a Palestinian prison. Al Baba had owned a real estate company in Nablus and, according to his family, had refused to sell a piece of property to the PA.
Civil Police:
With its distinctive blue uniform, the "civil police" is probably the unit most accurately termed a police force rather than a military or para-military outfit. (Members of most other services wear khaki or camouflage uniforms.) The force is headed by Brigadier-General Ghazi Jabali, with the Hebron division falling under Colonel Mohammed Amin. Jabali has been accused of stopping distribution of Arabic newspapers in retaliation for critical reporting. He also oversaw the June 1996 detention of a Palestinian civil rights activist, Eyad Sarraj.
Force 17:
Yasser Arafat's praetorian guard is a hangover from Fatah's exile years, when members of this semi-autonomous and covert plain-clothes unit, often operating under diplomatic cover, carried out numerous terrorist atrocities. Its operatives were based at PLO missions, and maintained safe houses throughout Europe and the Middle East. Its infamous commanders included Ali Hassan Salameh, a key player in the Munich massacre. Its current head is believed to be Jawad Bassa.
Special Security Force:
This new unit was formed in February under the leadership of Colonel Mohammed Natour (Abu Tayeb), a long-time commander of Force 17, who was once on the Israeli intelligence services hitlist for elimination and is described by Neil Livingstone & David Halevy in Inside the PLO as a "covert operator and terrorist, not a military leader"
(New York: Quill/William Morrow, 1990).
Preventive Security Service:
With its headquarters in Jericho, this disreputable intelligence and operations unit is headed in Judea-Samaria by Colonel Jibril Rajoub, in the Gaza Strip by Colonel Muhammad Dahlan, and in the Hebron area by Jamil al-Bakri. Its agents have been caught operating illegally in Israel's capital, and have been implicated in numerous abductions of Arab Jerusalemites.
Naval Police:
Despite the nautical name, units of the Naval Police are deployed in all the land-locked PA-controlled cities of Judea-Samaria.
University Security Organ (Jihaz Am el-Jamat):
This unit was established by Arafat in 1996, to enforce security on Arab campuses, including the quelling of student unrest.
Rapid Response Teams:
Unique to Hebron, these black-uniformed troops are "always on standby in the backs
of jeeps, ready to speed off, sirens blaring, should trouble break out"
(The Jerusalem Report, February 20).
Border Police:
The PLO's equivalent of the Israeli service which guards the country's border crossings.
Criminal Police:
Exactly how this service differs from the civil police, is unclear.
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