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Meshaal re-elected as Hamas leader

Al-Akhbar | April 1, 2013

Two Hamas officials say the Palestinian Islamic group has re-elected Khaled Meshaal as its leader for the fourth time.

Mashaal, 56, who has run the Palestinian movement since 1996 from exile, was widely seen as a favorite.

He is backed by regional powers Qatar, Turkey and Egypt. He is now based in Qatar.

The officials said the majority of the group’s Shura council members voted for Meshaal. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the secret procedure.

There had been speculation that Meshaal, who is based in exile, would be forced aside by the movement’s powerful leaders in the Gaza Strip, which it has controlled since 2007. Meshaal himself had said last year that he would not seek a new term.

But Hamas officials had hinted that Meshaal would continue leading the Palestinian group.

“The movement’s leaders have decided to renew Meshaal’s term for four years,” a high-ranking Hamas official told AFP on condition of anonymity ahead of the vote.

Hamas officials were in Cairo on Sunday and Monday for the vote, and to discuss with Egyptian leaders reconciliation with the rival Fatah faction of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

After 37 years in exile from Palestine, it was only last December that Meshaal made his first ever visit to Gaza.

He was propelled to the movement’s leadership in 2004 after Israel assassinated the movement’s founding leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successor Abdelaziz al-Rantissi in the Gaza Strip.

Meshaal himself survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Jordan in 1997 when agents of the Mossad secret service disguised as Canadian tourists bungled an attempt to poison him on a street in Amman.

(AFP, AP, Al-Akhbar)

April 1, 2013 - Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , ,

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