JERUSALEM, Feb 3: The United States will expand assistance to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to include about 8,500 members of his national security forces and possibly 1,000 Fatah fighters based in Jordan, US documents show.

Providing non-lethal equipment and training to units of Abbas’s National Security Forces, and possibly the Jordan-based Badr Brigade could increase Washington’s role in the power struggle between Abbas’s Fatah faction and the governing Hamas movement. US assistance has largely been limited until now to around 4,000 members of Abbas’s presidential guard.

But documents obtained by Reuters on Saturday showed that the US government’s $86.4 million security assistance programme could cover at least 13,500 troops loyal to Abbas.

The National Security Forces (NSF) is the largest security force under Abbas’s control and is viewed by many Palestinians to be the equivalent of an army, though it is poorly trained and equipped compared to the smaller presidential guard.

Under the US security programme, $76.4 million will fund “projects to transform and strengthen elements of the Palestinian Authority’s security structure, specifically the National Security Forces and Presidential Guard in an effort to improve public order and fight terror in the West Bank and Gaza,” the documents said.

“These projects have been developed in coordination with the office of the PA president (Abbas), and the overall plan enjoys the support of the government of Israel,” said the documents, marked “sensitive but unclassified”.—Reuters