RAMALLAH, West Bank, July 17 (AFP) - A long-awaited revamp of the security services by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat looks unlikely to end a breakdown in law and order or resolve tensions with his prime minister Ahmed Qorei.
Arafat finally agreed Saturday to streamline the complex security apparatus from eight to three branches under heavy international pressure.
The move came in the aftermath of an unprecedented spree of kidnappings in the Gaza Strip which even saw the overall police chief in the Palestinian territories, General Ghazi Jabali, abducted by dissident militants who accused him of corruption.
Jabali was promptly replaced by General Saed Elajez, while Arafat also named his nephew Musa as head of general security.
But any hope that the revamp would quell dissent was soon punctured when the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat's Fatah movement which has been behind a string of anti-Israeli attacks, said Musa's appointment would lead to "internal conflict" and branded him a symbol of corruption.
The three new heads of the streamlined security apparatus are all known to be close to Arafat and few believe the shake-up will placate Qorei, who nearly quit last autumn when his choice of interior minister was blocked.
His local government minister, Jamal Shubaki, predicted Saturday that the premier would walk away despite Arafat's refusal to accept his resignation, tendered Saturday.
Qorei's predecessor, Mahmud Abbas, resigned in September in exasperation at the 75-year-old Ararat's reluctance to loosen his grip on the security forces which enables him to exercise the lion's share of power in the territories despite being confined to his West Bank headquarters since December 2001.
Jamil al-Shaati, the chairman of the Palestinian parliament's human rights committee, said that Saturday's shake-up in the security ranks had failed to address any of the more deep-seated demands for reform.
"What has happened today is only a change of the names and will not help solve the real problem," he told AFP.
In a savage attack on Arafat last week, the United Nations' special envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, said that the veteran leader was presiding over "a steadily worsening deterioration of law and order in Palestinian areas."
"Clashes and showdowns between branches of Palestinian security forces are now common in the Gaza Strip, where legal authority is receding fast in the face of the mounting power of arms, money and intimidation."
The situation in Gaza is echoed in large parts of the West Bank, notably in the main northern city of Nablus whose long-time mayor Ghassan al-Shaka resigned in May, saying he would no longer be "a partner or witness" to the economic, social and security deterioration in the city of 200,000 residents.
Speaking after an emergency cabinet meeting Saturday, housing minister Abdelrahman Hamad conceded that Qorei's government was failing to tackle the crisis.
"This government has not succeded in stopping the security madness. What's happened in Gaza is not the first time," he told AFP. "The situation is very critical."
With gunmen from armed factions such as Al-Aqsa and Hamas increasingly ruling the roost, the prospects of an independent Palestinian state are receding.
The internationally backed roadmap peace plan envisages the creation of a Palestinian state in 2005, but only after the Palestinian Authority "undertakes visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt and restrain" the armed factions.