Fatah works the media (captive rescued and released)

Hamas election campaign, last winter

AFP: Fatah-linked group rescues, releases US student

NABLUS, West Bank (AFP) - The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is loosely affiliated to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party, rescued and freed a US student who had been taken hostage by another armed group in the West Bank, a Fatah official said.

"Men from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade released the American student who had been taken hostage in Nablus this evening and he is now safe and sound and in a safe place," said Fatah official Jamal Tirawi.

"There were exchanges of gunfire with the hostage-takers but the student was rescued and handed over to Ghassan al-Shaka, a member of the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, at whose house he is now," he added.

That Abu Mazen, he's clever like a fox.