Israel Matzav

Syrian liaison to Hezbullah assassinated

Arab media reported on Sunday that General Mohammed Suleiman, a top Syrian general who acted as his country's liaison to Hezbullah, was assassinated on Friday in the port city of Tartus.

Pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper, quoting "well-informed" sources in London, said the officer had been found dead on Friday night-Saturday morning. It said the officer had been in charge of "sensitive files" and was close to the Syrian leadership.

Lebanon's [pro-government. CiJ] Future News television station identified the officer as Brigadier General Mohammad Suleiman whom it said was a military aide to Assad. It said his body was found at a hotel in the northern port city of Tartous.

According to the Syrian newspaper Albawaba, the sources told another Arabic-language newspaper, the London-based Al-Hayat, that Syrian authorities have been trying to prevent the publication of the news regarding Suleiman's assassination.

The Syrian Web site "Free Syria", affiliated with Syrian opposition leader Abd al-Halim Khaddam, also dealt extensively with the assassination, and described Suleiman as Assad's right-hand man on military matters. According to the Web site, Suleiman was also a member of Syria's Baath Party, and held the government's Lebanon portfolio.

Albawaba stated that no organization has claimed responsibility for the killing as of yet and the reports did not say who was behind it.

The reports did, however, refer to the assassination of Hezbollah's senior commander Imad Mughniyah in February, and suggested that Israel was involved in the killing.

Heh. Ya' think?

Now Lebanon has several different versions of Suleiman's (they spell it Sleiman) identity.

The Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat on Sunday quoted "informed sources" in London as saying that a senior Syrian officer had been found dead.

"The circumstances of the incident are not clear," the London-based paper said in its report, which said the sources suggested that the slain officer had been "in charge of sensitive files and closely linked to the Syrian top brass."

Al-Bawaba, an Arab news website, named the officer as Mohammed Sleiman and said he was "Syria's liaison officer with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement."

It said he was killed by a sniper in the northwest Syrian town of Tartous and would be buried in his hometown of Driekesh on Sunday.

The Lebanese Hariri-run daily al-Mustaqbal quoted a Syrian news site as saying Sleiman was the head of security at the presidential palace in Damascus and President Bashar al-Assad's "right-hand man."

The paper made no mention of Hezbollah in its report.

A Hezbollah official told AFP in Lebanon that he did not know Mohammed Sleiman and had not heard about any killing.

Hmm.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:50 PM