Mohammed Dahlan
Mohammed DahlanReuters

Turkey announced Friday it would offer four million lira ($700,000) for information leading to the capture of former Palestinian Arab strongman Mohammed Dahlan, now exiled in the United Arab Emirates, AFP reported.

Turkey accuses Dahlan of being a mercenary for the UAE and of being involved in the failed 2016 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu was quoted as having told the Hurriyet newspaper that Dahlan would be placed on the country’s list of most wanted terrorists.

Dahlan, a former security chief in Gaza under Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction, was ousted from the party in 2011 and fled to Dubai. His home in Ramallah was later raided by PA security forces.

Abbas has accused Dahlan of, among other things, collaborating with Israel to assassinate a senior Hamas terrorist in 2002.

Dahlan was sentenced in absentia in 2016 to three years in prison for allegedly embezzling $16 million while serving as a cabinet minister.

Turkish media, noted AFP, regularly accuse Dahlan of involvement in the 2016 coup, and recently of playing a role in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul last year.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu last month accused the UAE of harboring a terrorist, telling the Al Jazeera network, “(Dahlan) fled to you because he is an agent of Israel.”

Cavusoglu further accused the UAE of trying to replace Abbas with Dahlan.

A report back in 2016 claimed that the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan were planning to have Dahlan replace Abbas as PA chairman.

Two years earlier, reports said Israel was carrying out secret talks with Dahlan and that then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman met in Paris with Dahlan – a report Liberman denied.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)