There’s absolutely nobody to root for, as Hamas puts down a threat to their control of Gaza by invading a mosque and slaughtering more than 20 people.

GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian Islamists Hamas struck back at an al-Qaeda challenge to their grip on the Gaza Strip by storming a mosque in overnight battles that left the leader of the “Warriors of God” splinter group among up to 28 dead.

After fighting ended early on Saturday the town of Rafah was sealed off to media, but Hamas said the physician and preacher who led the group and who had declared an al Qaeda-style Islamic “emirate” from a local mosque on Friday was dead — blown up by his own hand along with a Syrian ally after killing a mediator.

In this screwed up surrealistic conflict, Hamas is actually the “moderate” side. The “Warriors of God” dressed like the Taliban and wanted to impose strict Stone Age conditions on Gaza.

Some of the dead were former Hamas men who, people who knew them said, wanted a tougher line on imposing Islamic rule. The group “wanted a return to anarchy,” said Ehab al-Ghsain, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry of the Hamas government which has run Gaza since routing forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007.

Residents said the Ibn Taymea mosque where Moussa preached on Friday to a hundred or so supporters, some armed and dressed like Taliban, was hit by grenades and Moussa’s house destroyed.