Factions

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Leaders of the moderate Fatah Party accused gunmen of deliberately targeting innocent children in the ambush killing of an intelligence officer's three young sons yesterday, an unprecedented attack that threatened to escalate fighting between Palestinian factions. The boys and their driver were killed by masked men who riddled their car with more than 60 rounds of automatic weapons fire as they were leaving for school in the morning. Their father, a Fatah loyalist who had dodged a September shooting attack by Hamas militants, was not in the vehicle.

JERUSALEM -- Rival Palestinian factions reported a tentative agreement yesterday to name a U.S.-educated scientist as prime minister of a unity government that they hope will persuade Western nations to restore aid. Mohammed Shabir, a former university president with no political affiliation, emerged as the likely leader of a new coalition during talks between the governing Hamas movement and Fatah, the party it defeated at the polls in January....

BAGHDAD -- Political factions squabbled over control of Iraq's armed forces yesterday as security woes continued. At least one U.S. soldier and 15 Iraqis were reported killed in shootings and bombings around the country. Iraq's elected lawmakers, deep in discussions over the formation of a government, remain mired in talks over the appointments of ministers of interior and defense. Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki, a former Shiite political activist, has less than two weeks to name a Cabinet that meets the approval of a majority of the 275 members of parliament.

JERUSALEM -- Street clashes erupted yesterday in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over a dispute between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Palestinian government. Stone-throwing confrontations in Gaza City and the northern West Bank town of Nablus broke out between hundreds of supporters of Hamas and Fatah, the former ruling faction defeated in January's parliamentary election. Palestinian police and witnesses said the separate melees escalated to include firebombs and an exchange of gunfire.

WHEELING, W.Va. -- President Bush publicly pressured the quarreling Iraqi political factions yesterday to put aside their differences and establish a government. "It's time for a government to get stood up," he said in the latest of a series of appearances bolstering his Iraq policy. "There's time for the elected representatives - or those who represent the voters, the political parties - to come together and form a unity government," Bush said. "That's what the people want. Otherwise, they wouldn't have gone to the polls, would they have?"

BAGHDAD -- Only days after deciding to nominate incumbent Ibrahim al-Jaafari to continue as Iraq's prime minister, his United Iraqi Alliance coalition was showing signs yesterday of fraying. Leaders of the Al Fadila al Islamiya Party, which is associated with radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and had offered its own candidate for the post, threatened yesterday to break from the dominant alliance if the UIA did not make more overtures to Sunni Arabs, restrain Shiite paramilitary groups and rule in a more collaborative style.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- The overwhelming victory in Palestinian elections by the radical Islamic group Hamas ushered in an era of uncertainty and anxiety yesterday, as Palestinians and Israelis wondered what kind of government to expect from an organization best known for suicide attacks, not its politics. Hamas won 76 seats in the Palestinians' 132-seat parliament, an outright majority, ending decades of dominance by Fatah, which won 43 seats, according to preliminary results released last night.

JERUSALEM -- The Fatah movement that dominates Palestinian politics was immersed in turmoil yesterday as leaders sought to avert a potentially damaging party split five weeks before elections to parliament. Members of Fatah's so-called young guard insisted they had no intention of backing down after submitting a list of candidates to rival the official Fatah slate. The renegades offered a candidate roster, under the name of a new party called The Future, with jailed uprising leader Marwan Barghouti at the top. The official Fatah slate also placed Barghouti in the top slot.

CAIRO, EGYPT --For the first time, Iraq's political factions collectively called yesterday for a timetable for withdrawal of foreign forces, in a moment of consensus that comes as the Bush administration battles pressure at home to commit to a pullout schedule. The announcement, made at the conclusion of a reconciliation conference in Cairo backed by the Arab League, was a public reaching out by Shiites, who now dominate Iraq's government, to Sunni Arabs ahead of parliamentary elections that have been put on shaky ground by weeks of sectarian violence.

.. A small group of activists is trying to have the head of the PTA Council of Baltimore County removed from his position, alleging that he has failed to follow bylaws and has behaved in a "bullying" fashion -- accusations that he dismisses as "politics." The four activists who started that effort, all former or current members of Baltimore County's PTA Council, are also rallying opposition to Michael C. Franklin's bid to become president-elect of the Maryland PTA. They say Franklin has repeatedly intimidated fellow volunteers and that he has not followed the group's rules -- for example, failing to order a mandated financial audit.