Eight dead in clash between Hamas, pro-al-Qaeda group - Summary

Rafah, Gaza Strip - A pro-al-Qaeda group which declared a theocratic Islamic emirate in the Gaza Strip battled it out Friday with Hamas policemen, leaving eight dead and 46 wounded. The fate of Abdel Latif Moussa, leader of the Jihad al-Salafi group also known as the Warriors of God, was unknown after Hamas police blew up his house adjacent to the mosque in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.

He and several followers had been holed up in the complex for hours.

The clashes began in the afternoon after Moussa, speaking at Friday prayers at a Rafah mosque, announced the theocratic emirate and demanded that the Islamic Hamas, which administers the Strip, impose strict Islamic law.

Dozens of group members, masked and brandishing AK-47 assault rifles, took up position outside the mosque. After the prayers had ended, they exchanged fire with members of the Hamas police force of the Islamic Hamas movement which administers the Gaza Strip.

Witnesses said they heard "intensive" gunfire and explosions around the Ibn Tahmeh mosque.

Doctors at al-Najr hospital said three of the injured were in serious condition. Two of the dead were members of the Izz-a-Din-al-Kassem, the Hamas armed wing, who had come to help root out the pro-al-Qaeda group.

Hamas police also took up positions in neighboring houses, and stormed Moussa's home, later blowing it up with explosives. It was unclear whether Moussa was killed in the blast, whether he had escaped, or whether he had been captured.

His associates have threatened to take bloody revenge on Hamas if he is harmed.

Membership in the Jiad al-Salafi has grown since Hamas, an Islamic group, seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.