JERUSALEM, Jan 5: The Bush administration will provide $86 million to strengthen security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, expanding US involvement in his struggle with Hamas, according to documents seen on Friday.

Fighting between Abbas’s Fatah faction and Hamas, the ruling Islamist group, has surged since talks on forming a unity government collapsed and Abbas called for early parliamentary and presidential elections.

The US money will be used to “assist the Palestinian Authority presidency in fulfilling PA commitments under the road map (peace plan) to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism and establish law and order in the West Bank and Gaza,” according to a US government document obtained by Reuters.

It said Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton, the US security coordinator between Israel and the Palestinians, would implement the programme “to strengthen and reform elements of the Palestinian security sector controlled by the PA presidency”.

Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri accused US of helping to mount a “coup” against the Hamas-led government. “We demand that President Abbas reject this American policy, which feeds the culture of divisions among the Palestinian people,” he said.

Asked about the US money, senior Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said: “I have no knowledge of this.”—Reuters