Palestinian groups form armed leadership

Lebanese security circles and western diplomatic sources in Beirut and London said that five Palestinian and Lebanese groups which are "Hamas, al-Jihad, the people's front for the liberation of Palestine, the people's front - general Command and the Hizbullah agreed to form an armed leadership inside Palestine and South Lebanon."

In its Monday's issue, the Kuwaiti daily al-Seyasah said that these circles explained that these groups held meetings for two days in "Tanayel" in the Lebanese Bekaa district resulted in forming this leadership with the aim of "escalating resistance operations inside the occupied territories and preventing the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon from cultivating the fruits of his massacres against the Palestinians and from imposing his negotiation conditions on the chairman of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat."