"Most of the officers have received a training course of four weeks in Egypt," a PA source said. "It is the answer to Hamas's Executive Force."

[On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the Bush administration has prepared an arms deal with Gulf Cooperation Council states estimated at between $5 billion and $10 billion. The newspaper said the deal has been hampered by Israel and its supporters in Congress, Middle East Newsline reported.]

Most of the officers in the Special Force, created nearly a decade ago by the late PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, were drawn from leading units of the National Security Force and General Intelligence. The sources said more than 1,000 officers were trained by Egypt in squadron- and platoon-sized military operations and equipped with heavy machine guns, communications and body armor.

"Fatah has lots of organizations where it's not clear where their loyalties lie and who provides the orders," former PA minister Sufian Abu Zeideh, a Fatah leader, said. "It's time to make some order of this."

The Special Force has been commanded by Sami Abu Samhadana, a leading Fatah official treated recently for a heart ailment. The PA sources said Abu Samhadana, whose late brother Jamal was head of the Hamas-aligned Popular Resistance Committees until his assassination by Israel in June 2006, has been directed by Abbas's national security adviser, Mohammed Dahlan.

For his part, Dahlan has reported the establishment of a security force meant to protect Fatah. He did not identify the organization.

"Dahlan's idea is to make a security force that is above the political parties," Abu Zeideh said.

Egypt and Jordan have been the major weapons suppliers to forces loyal to Abbas. The Israeli daily Haaretz said that in December 2006 Jordan transferred 3,000 M-16 semi-automatic rifles to Abbas-led forces. The newspaper said Egypt delivered 2,500 Soviet-origin AK-47 rifles to the PA forces. Another three million rounds of ammunition were also provided by Egypt and Jordan.

Over the next week, about 350 members of the Special Force were scheduled to complete a month-long training exercise in Egypt. PA sources said the entire force would complete training in Egypt by mid-2007.

In early April, U.S. security envoy Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton discussed Egyptian aid to the PA in a meeting in Cairo. The meeting was attended by representatives of Egypt, Israel and the PA and focused on the development of the Presidential Guards and the Special Force.

"The force is being built on the assumption that the militia war in Gaza will continue," the PA source said. "But this time, Fatah believes it has forces that will fight."