Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is cracking down on former Gaza Strip security chief Mohammed Dahlan, a longtime rival, in what appears to be a power struggle within the mainstream Fatah movement.

The crackdown comes as Abbas, who heads Fatah and runs the West Bank, seeks reconciliation with the fundamentalist Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since a June 2007 takeover.

Dahlan and Hamas are old enemies and Abbas' move against his rival could be intended to facilitate a reconciliation effort to reunite the Palestinians as they move toward an expected declaration of statehood in September.

The political demise of Dahlan would be a major gesture toward Hamas hard-liners who fear that restoring links with Fatah would mean recognizing Israel.

But it was also rid Abbas of a determined political rival as he strives to establish a Palestinian state that would greatly enhance his status.

In December, Abbas, who isn't widely popular, accused Dahlan of plotting to overthrow the PA regime based in Ramallah. Dahlan denied that but he had been openly criticizing Abbas for months and bad-mouthed the president's businessmen sons, accusing them of exploiting their father's position to enrich themselves.

Two months earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported that Dahlan was part of a group of Fatah figures who sought to replace Abbas with Nasser al-Kidwa, a nephew of the late Yasser Arafat who died in November 2004.

A dozen of Dahlan's associates, including his office manager Moataz Khedeir, were arrested, interrogated and subsequently released. Other associates who had posts within the PA were summarily removed.

On April 6, the Palestinian Ma'an news agency reported Dahlan was being investigated by the PA over allegations he was involved in shipping Israel-made weapons to the forces of embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Dahlan denied that.

In the same month, the Palestinian mission in Algeria condemned an "assassination attempt" against Ambassador Hussein Abdelkhalek and accused Dahlan of instigating the attack.

For many years, while Arafat was Palestinian president, the Gaza-born Dahlan was one of the most powerful figures in Fatah. He was head of Arafat's Preventive Security Service in the Gaza Strip and led merciless crackdowns on Hamas in the 1990s that left an enduring legacy of hatred between him and the fundamentalists he ran up against.

As one of Arafat's security supremos, Dahlan was considered close to the CIA and the Israeli intelligence establishment in countering Palestinian threats against the Jewish state following the 1992-93 Oslo Accords.

That made many enemies for the ambitious Dahlan, who was once seen as a shrewd political operator and considered a possible successor to Arafat.

His fall from grace began in June 2007, when Hamas pre-empted a planned Fatah takeover of Gaza by moving against Fatah's forces in the coastal strip and seizing control, effectively splitting the putative Palestinian state into two mutually antagonistic enclaves.

Dahlan was widely blamed for losing Gaza. At the same time, his popular support was heavily eroded by persistent and widespread allegations of corruption.

Still, he was allowed to move to the West Bank. Abbas kept him on as an adviser but their relationship, never warm, deteriorated and things fell apart for Dahlan.

Abbas ordered an investigation of Dahlan and his political allies, stripped him of his personal security detail, a public rebuke in a society where one's standing is determined by his security retinue.

After the Gaza debacle, Dahlan had been able, with his charisma and money, to establish a new power base in the West Bank. He staged something of a political comeback in 2009 by getting elected to Fatah's Central Committee.

Abbas' move against him in December, and the Fatah commission of inquiry into the alleged coup plot, essentially left Dahlan politically isolated.

Last week, the Central Committee suspended him pending the findings of the Fatah commission. At the same time, the PA blocked five Fatah-affiliated Web sites that were run by Dahlan supporters.

Fatah sources said Abbas seeks to have Dahlan expelled from Fatah on charges of corruption and murder and declared persona non grata in the Palestinian territories.

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