Osama bin Laden urges Americans to turn to Islam if they want the Iraq war to end.!

Osama bin Laden has used his first videotape message in nearly three years to threaten to escalate the violence in Iraq and attack the US government. The video, which was released just days before the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks, urges Americans to turn to Islam if they want the Iraq war to end.
Bin Laden derides George Bush, saying events in Iraq have spun "out of control" and the US president "is like the one who ploughs and sows the sea: he harvests nothing but failure".

Gaza Under Hamas: Quiet, Cut Off and Digging In

By STEVEN ERLANGERPublished: September 8, 2007GAZA CITY, Sept. 4 —

Nearly three months after Hamas conquered the teeming streets of Gaza, a wary calm has taken hold. People stroll at all hours, car theft has practically stopped, even armed police officers are rarely seen.
After 18 months in which gun battles between Hamas and Fatah forces defined street life, Hamas has made it illegal to carry weapons in public or to fire them, even at weddings or funerals.
Tamer al-Bagga, who manages a beachside cafe, said people now patronized his business until “all hours of the night.” In June, people were hiding at home, keeping their children on the floor to avoid bullets. “Now we have security,” he said. “But with the closure, we have no money.”
Because the Hamas charter calls for Israel’s destruction and Hamas is classified by Israel, the United States and the European Union as a terrorist group, Israel, along with much of the world, is squeezing Gaza, allowing only goods classified as humanitarian or essential to enter and no exports at all to leave. So an already faltering economy is collapsing.
According to the Palestinian Businessmen Association, 75 percent of private factories and workshops have closed for lack of essential materials or spare parts, throwing 70,000 more people out of work.
Stores are half stocked. Cigarettes and spare parts have become very expensive. There are electricity cuts of up to eight hours a day. Vegetables and fruit, with no possibility of export, are dirt cheap. “We have the best-fed donkeys in the world,” said Fahed Khalifa, 19, who owns one.
With United Nations food aid, no one is starving, but Gaza is more isolated now than ever, cut off not only from the West Bank but also from the rest of the world. With the crossing into Egypt also closed, Gazans are finding it almost impossible to get Israeli permission to leave the territory, even temporarily.
Hamas now has a near monopoly on weapons in Gaza, but its battle with Fatah, which largely controls the West Bank, continues. The fight is over personnel, the news media and even how to define the weekend, with Hamas sticking with the traditional Thursday and Friday, and the West Bank government insisting on Friday and Saturday.
While Hamas talks of restoring a unity government with Fatah, the rift appears to be deepening.
Fatah is trying to regroup in Gaza, displaying its support by paying Palestinian Authority workers in Gaza but telling them to stay home. There have been a few isolated explosions and warnings of assassinations. But most visibly, Fatah has been organizing protests on Fridays, asking supporters to demonstrate by praying not in the mosques, but outside them, and then trying to provoke the Hamas police by chanting anti-Hamas slogans and throwing stones.
Hamas seems confused about how to respond. Two senior Hamas officials, Mahmoud Zahar and Ahmed Youssef, said in separate interviews here this week that protests and free speech would not be punished, but that rock throwing and lawbreaking would. Asked if that meant that the outdoor prayers could continue unpunished, Mr. Youssef agreed.
Mr. Zahar, who has a tougher reputation and is more senior in Hamas, also agreed, but said praying outdoors violated religious laws.
But the next day, Hamas issued a new decree, banning outdoor prayers. [On Friday, Fatah held an outdoor prayer rally anyway, and up to 30 people were hurt in clashes with the Hamas police, and three local journalists were briefly detained.]
Hamas insists that it respects the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, and that Hamas will continue to rule here under the political program of the unity government negotiated under Saudi auspices in March and dismissed in June by Mr. Abbas. And Hamas has been careful in its language, talking of fighting American and Israeli agents and “corrupted elements” inside Fatah, but not Fatah itself.
Even at the Soraya, the massive Palestinian security headquarters overrun in the June fighting, Hamas has been openly respectful, leaving the murals of Fatah heroes undisturbed on the outside walls.
But Mr. Youssef also has a tough warning for Fatah and Mr. Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen. “We could turn the tables on Abu Mazen in Ramallah if we wanted to, but we hope that in a few months we can talk together and solve our internal problems and find a solution on a new government,” he said.
He asked Mr. Abbas to lift a ban on Fatah politicians’ in Gaza talking to Hamas, though he said some Fatah leaders in Ramallah regularly consulted with Hamas, “trying to repair the damage and find a way to work together.”
The Hamas threats to Fatah are real. The crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank, with Israel’s help, is severe. But Fatah is largely unreformed, Mr. Abbas is reported by those close to him to be tired of the pressures of the job and not respected by many in Fatah, and the Palestinian security forces, even they admit, are still too weak to take responsibility over even quiet towns like Jericho from the Israelis.
Even the jailed Fatah figure Marwan Barghouti, whom some see as an Abbas successor, warned that Fatah should quickly hold new internal elections and not underestimate the threat from Hamas in the West Bank.
Mr. Zahar said that Hamas had corruption files on major Fatah figures, some of whom, he said, spied for the United States on Hamas and the Arab world, and that Hamas knew Fatah’s plans for disruption in Gaza.
“We’re in contact with Ramallah, and we’re watching them,” he said. “No one wants new chaos in Gaza, and we will arrest them at a proper time, to face a fair trial.”
Mr. Youssef and Mr. Zahar are confident that Mr. Abbas’s talks with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel will go nowhere, that the Israelis are not prepared for serious concessions, and that failure will only help Hamas argue that its path of self-reliance and struggle is superior.
“All the Middle East experts say these talks are a mirage,” Mr. Youssef said. “Abu Mazen can’t bring us anywhere after he sold us Oslo for 15 years. If he acts as an enemy to Hamas, people see him as a friend of Israel. People don’t like to see him hugging Olmert and nothing changes.”
Mr. Zahar said: “We’ve signed many agreements with Abu Mazen, and he’s broken all of them. We don’t trust him.”
Palestinians here are tired. People are nervous about their salaries and livelihoods. People who work for the Palestinian Authority, and who are being paid by the government in Ramallah and ordered not to go to work, stay home. Some employees refuse even to greet Hamas friends on the street, lest Ramallah somehow hear about it and stop paying.
There is no longer a rush hour; taxis are idle.
But the struggle continues, and no one expects Hamas to give up what it has gained here, or Israel and the West to suddenly open their arms and let Gaza breathe and Hamas take credit.
People fear another major Israeli incursion, prompted by Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israeli cities like Sderot. But Hamas still refuses to stop groups like Islamic Jihad or Fatah’s Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades from firing the rockets.
Faysal G. Shawa, a construction engineer and Gaza City councilman, sees the situation as blocked and worsening. “Every day we lose,” he said. “We lose our dignity and self-respect. Gaza is losing its best people, our smart people and our pioneers.”
He has mothballed his own business because there are no new construction projects, given the increasing shortage of building supplies. “I’ve decided to stay for now,” he said. “But after a few months more of this, I’ll ask myself, stay for what?”
Israel, the West and Fatah “can’t allow Hamas to succeed in Gaza,” Mr. Shawa said. “And we’re suffering. And Hamas will stay, even if they have to fight the Palestinians living here. They’ll be O.K., and we’ll die.”

Hamas Suppresses Fatah Protest
JERUSALEM, Sept. 7 — Hamas security forces moved Friday to prevent and disrupt outdoor prayers called as a protest by the Fatah movement for a third week running, and up to 30 Palestinians were wounded in clashes.
The scenes were particularly vivid in the northern refugee camp of Jabaliya, where Hamas police officers tried to prevent Fatah supporters from gathering to pray outside.
The police fired in the air, beat some protesters and made one arrest. Three journalists were briefly detained, and cameramen and photographers were warned about filming. Three Fatah leaders in Gaza were arrested for “instigating riots,” Hamas confirmed, but were released.
After two weeks of outdoor prayer protests, Hamas banned them earlier in the week, almost ensuring a new clash on Friday.