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 RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' security forces have significantly widened a crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank in the past month. They have doubled the number of detainees and are increasingly targeting the wives of activists, school teachers and others on the fringes of the Islamic militant group, Hamas officials say.
In the same period, police in Hamas-ruled Gaza have picked up dozens of Abbas loyalists, said officials in Abbas' Fatah movement.
The bitter rivals accuse each other of using the sweeps for political leverage, as they try to negotiate an elusive power-sharing deal and the terms of general elections in January. A Palestinian unity government is seen as crucial to U.S. efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, since Israel says it can't make concessions to the divided Palestinians.
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