Official confirms Syria allowing Qaida to operate in Lebanon: FYI: EVERYONE HATES US

A Jerusalem source confirmed an exclusive report in Ha'aretz on Monday that Damascus has allowed some 150-200 Qaida operatives to settle in the Palestinian refugee camp Ein Hilwe near Sidon in Lebanon. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source told the Associated Press that the information had come from Israeli and Western intelligence sources.

According to the report, by Ha'aretz Defense Correspondent Ze'ev Schiff in Monday's print edition, the group, including senior commanders, arrived from Afghanistan through Damascus, Iran and directly to Lebanon.

These Qaida operatives are responsible, among other things, for the latest outbreak of fighting inside the refugee camp, as part of their effort to take over the camp.

While he refused to directly confirm the report, Ra'anan Gissin, a senior aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said that "It was only a matter of time before al-Qaida found a comfortable refuge in Damascus like other organizations."

Among the new details now known: Mohammed Atta, the leader of the Qaida group that conducted the Sept. 11 airplane suicide attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, flying the first plane into the towers, visited Syria twice or three times. The Syrians did not give that information to the Americans on their own volition.

Osama bin Laden's son, Omar, left Syria together with his mother Nagwa, three weeks before the attack on the Twin Towers, after receiving anonymous instructions to do so. The son returned to Syria after 9-11, and has since visited twice more. Bin Laden's wife and son lived in the Alawite stronghold in Latakiya in an arrangement that gave refuge to bin Laden's close relatives. The two are not in Syria at present.

Intelligence services have also managed to find detailed information about contacts between one of the leading Hezbollah military figures, Imad Mourghniyeh, and a Qaida operative in Sudan. There is no evidence yet of that relationship developing into continuing ties, but there is no doubt the meeting could not have taken place without Syrian intelligence knowing of it.

Much evidence now shows that before 9-11, Syria was a stomping ground for Qaida operatives, considered a place where they could move around in relative freedom. The country served as transit point for them and Qaida had an infrastructure there. They were able to operate with relatively few of the restrictions that other Arab countries, like Egypt, put on them.

After 9-11, the Syrians initially believed there would be no significant change in the geopolitical developments. Syrian President Bashar Assad told a Lebanese newspaper that "there is no sign that there has been any great change since September 11." He said that "there are ways" to stand up to the military and technological superiority of others. For example, the U.S. "has the most power, the best technology, and the strongest mechanisms, but it has not been able to provide security in its cities because force is not a necessary condition for providing security and stability."

Therefore, said Assad, "the current developments require serious judgment and sticking to basic principles. Following September 11, everything must be examined with better judgment especially when discussing the ramifications of what happened to our region."

Shortly afterward, as American rage grew and the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan began, the Syrians changed position, and said they were ready for intelligence cooperation with the U.S. on the Qaida issue. But there are now clear indications that it was tactical and only partial cooperation.

Readiness for cooperation mostly came via information about Qaida cells in other countries and not what Qaida representatives were doing in Syria. Important information came from Syria, for example, on Qaida cells in Germany. That apparently is what kept Syria off President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" list.

Most of the Syrian information about Qaida activities in Germany came from the interrogation of a German citizen of Syrian descent, Mohammed Haider Zemer. He was questioned by Syrian intelligence before 9-11, and the Syrians were ready to hand him over to the Germans, who were not interested at the time.

But the Germans changed their minds after 9-11, after the Americans gave them the information provided by the Syrians, which led to information about Qaida operatives in Hamburg and elsewhere in Germany, including information about Mohammed Atta.

The Germans then asked the Syrians to extradite Zemer so they could continue questioning him and put him on trial, but the Syrians refused, and refuse to do so to this day. Meanwhile, Zemer's passport was found in an apartment in Afghanistan that belonged to a senior Qaida commander.

Another link between Qaida and Syria can be found in the arrest in Spain of three Syrians. One says that Mohammed Atta met with one of the three in Spain. The three were found with videotapes of various possible targets in America, and they apparently served as an intelligence gathering cell for Atta before 9-11.

One of those arrested, Mohammed Hirel Sak, is an Alawite. Another, Abarash Kaliyon, has been identified as a former member of the Islamic Brotherhood in Syria. The third, Abdel Rahman Arnot, has admitted he had links to the commander of the Qaida training camps of western Afghanistan. It is also known that Atta's phone number was found in the apartment of one of the Syrians arrested in Spain.

What exactly was Atta doing on his visits to Syria? Meanwhile, the Syrians repeatedly changed their position since 9-11. Nowadays, they appear to be deliberately turning a blind eye to Qaida activity, particularly in Lebanon. A key question so far unanswered is what Atta was doing on his visits to Syria, and whom he met. It's known that he was in Aleppo in northern Syria, but it is not known whom he met. He was in Syria at least twice and possibly three times.

The change in Syrian attitudes can be seen in the permission they gave to Qaida men on the run from Afghanistan to find refuge in Lebanon, which is under control of the Syrian army and intelligence.

After the defeat of the Taliban, Qaida began fleeing Afghanistan, heading home. Chechnyans, for example, used Turkey as a way station on their way home. Palestinians, Jordanians and Jordanians of Palestinian descent, as well as a few Lebanese, headed back to Lebanon. The Syrians arrested some of them for interrogation and it is known that mostly the Qaida have gone to Ein Hilwe.

The Ein Hilwe battles last month were initiated by the Qaida men there, with three of them were killed in the fighting. The fight for control over the camp is not over. Meanwhile, the Qaida there, led by commanders from Afghanistan, is establishing a local infrastructure. One bit of intelligence says they are interested in getting material for chemical weapons.

The gun-battle in the refugee camp was angrily condemned by Lebanese. A Nahar editor Jibran Tuwany wrote on August 15, that "what is happening now in Ein Hilwe camp could become a turning point on the way to the establishment of a state within a state...

"There are fears that Lebanon will become an isolated island because of all the enclaves created by the Palestinian camps from south to north, through the Bekaa and Beirut. The danger is in all these enclaves managing to connect to one another. What happened in Ein Hilwe is a real war... reminiscent of the war of 1975," Tuwany wrote.

Very little is known about the connection between Qaida and the Hezbollah and there is no certainty those contacts were developed. The first evidence came in testimony by Al Rahman Mohammed, who was arrested after the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. He said he knows a Hezbollah official met in 1996 in Sudan with someone later identified as a Qaida representative.

The mediator for the meeting was a Sudanese sheikh named Ali Numeini. Bin Laden had extensive activity in the country at the time, as did Iranian intelligence. The intelligence reports say that the initiative for the meeting came from Qaida, whose leaders were impressed by Hezbollah attacks on foreign embassies in Lebanon and Argentina.

Bin Laden's wife and son lived in the Alawite stronghold in Latakiya in an arrangement that gave refuge to bin Laden's close relatives. The two are not in Syria at present.

My daughter visited Latakiya a few years ago, stayed at the supposedly first-class Meridien Hotel, and while she was there, they discovered a body on bottom of the pool. Pool was so filthy, you could not see the body, no telling how long it was there....May the bin Laden family enjoy the superior accomodations and lifestyle of Latakiya to the fullest!

MEANWHILE, the following article was posted at FR a cuople of weeks ago....I don't have the link but did copy the article. Syria is playing footsie with Iraq bigtime. Here's the article:

Saddam's Newest Playmate [Syria]: A deadly alliance. National Review Online ^ | August 7, 2002 | Michael Freund

It is August in the Middle East, and despite the intense summer heat, love is in the air. Saddam Hussein, the region's least-agreeable resident, has found himself a new playmate in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and their two countries haven't been this friendly in a good long time. Though regional tourism has been in a slump since September 11, the number of dignitaries, delegations, and diplomats traveling between Iraq and Syria in recent months has hit a feverish pace, as these two traditional rivals are growing increasingly nervous about Washington's war on terror. Just last week, the state-controlled Iraqi Journalists Union visited Damascus to meet with Syrian government officials and discuss "the necessity of enhancing cooperation between the two countries" in the field of media, the Syrian news agency reported on July 25. Since the media in both countries serve as little more than propaganda tools for the respective regimes, it is clear the two are planning something far more sinister than just an exchange of TV game shows.

In late June, Syrian Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade Ghassan al- Refai signed an agreement with Saddam's government to establish seven companies under joint control in fields such as land and sea transport and oil. After the ceremony, Al-Refai noted that Syrian-Iraqi relations "are proceeding forward rapidly" and said there is a "joint desire to revitalize bilateral cooperation at all levels." And if that didn't get the point across, al-Refai went on to add that, "Iraq is the strategic depth for Syria and that Syria is Iraq's depth for the interests of the two sisterly countries."

On July 11, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz conferred with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk A-Sharaa in Damascus. It was their second meeting in the Syrian capital since the beginning of the year, and it came just four months after Bashar al-Assad hosted Saddam's deputy, Izzat Ibrahim, for talks on the situation in the region. When two of the Middle East's most prodigious neighborhood bullies put aside their differences and start courting each other, it is time for Washington to wake up and take notice.

Indeed, Syria has repeatedly come out against the impending U.S. assault on Iraq, sharply criticizing the Bush administration for its intention to remove Saddam from power.

During a visit to Ankara on July 26, Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam said in an interview with a Turkish newspaper that there is no justification for America to go after Saddam. "The U.S.'s reasons to strike are baseless. Iraq does not possess weapons of mass destruction and does not pose any threat to her neighbors." The day before, Syrian Foreign Minister A-Sharaa, speaking to journalists in Damascus, also made clear that the Assad regime "rejected" any American plan to strike at Iraq. The Syrians, it appears, have not limited their support for Saddam to bluster, however. As Israel's most respected military analyst, Zeev Schiff, recently reported, weapons and military equipment are being shipped to Syrian ports from Eastern Europe and then covertly forwarded to Iraq by road and rail. It seems safe to assume that these very same weapons will no doubt be put to use against America's young men and women in uniform, once they arrive on the outskirts of Baghdad.

And, though a Washington Post story last week asserted that Syria is evolving into an "anti-terror ally," that is little more than Beltway wishful thinking. Damascus continues to play host to a range of terror groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and it has cooperated with Iran in transferring rockets, weapons, and explosive materials to Hezbullah in southern Lebanon.

Even more ominously, there are reports that al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan have found refuge in Syrian-controlled Lebanon. In a letter sent to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan last month, Israel's U.N. Ambassador Yehuda Lancry noted that al Qaeda's presence "has increased ... as operatives have fled Afghanistan and sought safe haven in Lebanese territory." Lancry identified Abu Mohammed Al Masri as al Qaeda's ringleader in Lebanon. Since the Syrians maintain an iron grip over Lebanese affairs, there is little likelihood that Osama bin Laden's associates would find refuge in the area without prior consent from the Assad regime.

In his June 24 speech on the Middle East, President George W. Bush said that Syria would have to close down terrorist training camps and expel terrorist groups from its territory. His words have no doubt sent a shiver throughout the Syrian regime, which fears being added to the "axis of evil," as it undoubtedly should.

But rather than joining the West in its war on terror, Damascus has instead embraced Saddam and strengthened its ties with him, precisely when the war on Baghdad seems increasingly inevitable.

Bashar al-Assad, then, has made his choice. It is now time for America to treat the Syrian dictator accordingly.

— Michael Freund served as deputy director of communications & policy planning in the Israeli prime minister's office from 1996 to 1999. He is currently an editorial writer and syndicated columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

END NATIONAL REVIEW ARTICLE-----

I'm particularly interested in Syria as there is some chance I may take a trip there within the next few months as part of job I'm working on with client. the US State Department gives some warnings about traveling there, but not the same red flag warnings they give Lebanon, Israel, and other Mideast countries....If you have a ping list for Syria news, please put me on it. Also, if any Freepers have current knowlege of how American tourists are being treated in Syria, please let me know.

Ahh, the real agenda of the new world satanic order. Destroy the last Christian nation on earth, and return to the dark ages. Sorry, ain't gonna happen. In fact, just when the devil thinks he has us were he wants us, a "new thing" will manifest itself, and all nations will flow into it, and away from Satan's Great Whore of Babylon new world disaster of tyranny, misery, bondage, and destruction.

Isaiah 2
2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from (new) Jerusalem (God's perfected church of annointed saints).
4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Jeremiah 51
44 And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up: and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.
45 My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of the LORD.

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