WASHINGTON, June 14, 2007 (AFP) - Fatah-linked gunmen on Thursday urged Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to declare martial law after Hamas loyalists overran all their rivals' security strongholds in the strife-torn Gaza Strip.

"It is clear there is a real coup for legitimacy," the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said in a statement transcript provided by the US-based SITE Institute, which monitors terrorist websites.

The group declared that it was facing a new front against two enemies, the Islamists of Hamas and Israel, and urged its fighters to mobilize in the West Bank and consider any Hamas member an "outlaw."

"We ask the president and the Fatah movement to withdraw from the positions immediately," the statement said, calling for the declaration of "martial law" and a complete deployment of the Fatah movement.

"All groups working in the field are prohibited from any activity for Hamas and should consider the Hamas organization in all areas of the West Bank as outlaws and to stop any armed movement for them whatever it costs.

"To our regret, we say to you that these killers imposed the battle in spite of us."

Earlier a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, told AFP that it controlled "all of the headquarters of the security services in the Gaza Strip ... including the presidency."

The takeover of Gaza effectively split the Palestinians into two, with Hamas -- considered a terror outfit by the European Union, Israel and the United States -- in charge of the Gaza Strip and Fatah retaining control over the West Bank.

A spike in inter-Palestinian fighting has killed at least 113 people in less than a week and plunged Gaza into chaos.

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