A TOP PLO body gave its approval Thursday to President Mahmoud Abbas to call new presidential and legislative elections, a high-stakes gamble meant to sideline Hamas, but also bound to set off new confrontations with the Islamists and cement the West Bank-Gaza divide.

According to the AlKavkaz news website referring to his sources, in Vedeno district a unit of Chechen Mujahideen under the command of Amir Osama attacked a military convoy of Russian kafirs. The attack took place on July 17.

Russian exiles have always feared that the Kremlin would try to silence them, wherever they were living. They cite the murder of Trotsky in Mexico, when a hitman sent by Stalin plunged an icepick into his head, and mysterious killings by Soviet agents in communist times. In the past year …