Hamas training diplomats, challenging PLO monopoly abroad

GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas has begun a training programme for diplomats in the Gaza Strip where it rules, a senior official of the Islamist group said, raising the spectre of divisions in the Palestinian national movement spreading to its representation abroad.

Hamas seized Gaza in a 2007 civil war with the Western-backed Fatah party that long dominated Palestinian politics and now rules parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. But Hamas has hitherto not challenged the Palestine Liberation Organisation, dominated by Fatah and recognised by the United Nations as the Palestinians' sole representative abroad for almost 40 years.