What's Really Driving the Fox News Kidnapping

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As vague as it was, the demand put forth Wednesday by a previously unknown Palestinian militant group calling itself the Holy Jihad Brigades who claimed to be behind the August 14 capture of two Fox News crewmen in Gaza appeared to be just part of yet another anti-Western kidnapping. In a videotape showing the two journalists — Steve Centanni, 60, a U.S. citizen, and Olaf Wiig, 36, a New Zealand cameraman — their captors demanded that in return for their release the U.S. should free an unspecified number of Muslim prisoners from its jails. But Palestinian security sources tell TIME that the conditions presented Wednesday are little more than a stall tactic, and that the seizure of the two men has much more to do with internal Palestinian and Islamic militant politics than with striking a blow against Israel and the U.S.

The Palestinian security sources told TIME that Holy Jihad Brigades is made up of gunmen who belonged to one of the many armed groups that splintered apart from the late Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. Arafat's weak and distracted successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has failed to rein them in, and they now operate inside the West Bank territories and Gaza as lawless vigilantes. Some are still on the payroll of Gaza's Preventive Security Police, a fiefdom of the Fatah's bosses. Suspicion has fallen on three groups in particular — Al Nasser Salaheddin, Abu Reesh Brigade, Abu Rees Brigade, and a spin-off of al Qasa Brigades based in the Gaza town of Khan Younis, near where the TV crew was captured at gunpoint. These security sources say that most likely, the Holy Jihad Brigades was created for the sole purpose of carrying out this kidnapping.

The true motivation behind the kidnapping, say these security sources, was to discredit both Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority — who rashly told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he could free the pair of journalists swiftly — and Ismael Haniyeh, the Palestinian prime minister, whose Hamas-led government has tried to crack down on Fatah splinter groups' roaming death squads and extortion rackets in Gaza.

In addition, the Holy Jihad Brigades is hoping that by staging a high-publicity kidnapping of foreigners, they may attract the largess of the Lebanese militia group, Hizballah. In recent months, say Israeli intelligence officials, Hizballah has started to bankroll a wide array of Palestinian groups in Gaza and the West Bank in their battle against Israeli forces, and the Brigades may be hoping to join this lucrative club.

That agenda, of course, may complicate any efforts to free the two men. The U.S. State Department says it will not bend to the brigades' demands that Muslim convicts be freed within 72 hours in a swap for the two journalists. But Fox officials and U.S. diplomats are hoping the deadline will be extended.

The kidnappers have not yet appointed a go-between to conduct negotiations, and in the meantime, Abbas has left Gaza for Jordan, essentially severing his involvement in efforts to free the hostages. Fox officials said they were heartened by the video, in which the two captives said they were well fed and "treated well'. Says Fox News's Jennifer Griffin, "I think it's important to point out that Olaf and Steve went to Gaza on their own accord. They chose to be in Gaza. They chose to cover the Palestinian perspective."

Still, now that Abbas has walked away from the crisis, the challenge for Fox officials is finding someone, in the midst of Gaza's chaos, who might have clout with the kidnappers. Meanwhile, some other lawless gangs in Gaza may have become inspired by the Brigades' capture. The U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem issued warnings on Wednesday for all U.S. and British journalists to stay out of Gaza, since they too could be stalked by kidnappers.