However, such overt breaks with the movement have still been rather uncommon, despite numerous rivalries inside and between competing local Fatah groups.

His Fatah group acts as a governing party within a coalition, but it gives other factions a voice.

He predicted that the two Fatah groups would join forces in a coalition government.

Witnesses said that three buildings used by the Fatah group of Yasir Arafat had been destroyed and that several people were buried under the debris.

Armed Hamas and Fatah groups have clashed over the last week in Gaza.

He was reported earlier to have ordered an estimated 2,500 guerrillas of his Fatah group in south Lebanon to halt anti-Israeli operations.

Hamas was shown as a lion that chased and killed rats that looked like members of the secular (separate from religion) Fatah group in Gaza.

Israel believes that members of a Fatah paramilitary group carried out yesterday's bus attack.

Hours later, unidentified gunmen assassinated the top security official of Yasir Arafat's mainstream Fatah group on a main street in Beirut.

First is the fact that Yasir Arafat's Fatah group, which has long dominated Palestinian life, is in disarray.