Last update - 00:00 06/10/2006
Assad calls on Egypt, Saudi Arabia to hold summits with Syria
By News Agencies
Syrian President Bashar Assad called on Egypt and Saudi Arabia to return to holding summits with Damascus, according to an interview published Friday in a Kuwaiti newspaper.
Assad said in an interview in the daily Al-Anba that the three Arab countries "consult less now" and should work together toward helping the hundreds of millions of Arabs in region.
"We hope that we go back soon to the idea of holding Syrian-Egyptian-Saudi summits like we used to do in the 1990s," Assad said.
Assad has been making attempts to align Syria with other Middle East heavyweights and play a stronger role in the region's politics.
He also has been trying to mend rifts with Egypt and Saudi Arabia since describing Mideast leaders as "half men" during a televised speech in August.
But Assad later claimed that he did not specifically mean the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, who had criticized Syrian-backed Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers July 12 that sparked the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Syria: Attack on U.S. embassy was planned in Saudi Arabia
Last month's attack on the U.S. embassy in Damascus was planned in Saudi Arabia and the four Syrians who carried it out had no links to al-Qaida, a Syrian government investigation said on Thursday.
Three of the four assailants, 31-year-old Abdel Raouf Saleh, Bilal Saleh, 25, and Samir Saleh, also 25, were close relatives who followed the teachings of a preacher in Saudi Arabia where they had worked, the Interior Ministry report said.
They started preparing for the operation in 2004, according to the report.
"An investigation into the attack has been concluded. The group planned to blow an embassy door, storm the compound and kill whoever was inside. It had no links with extremist organizations outside Syria," the report said.
"They attended lessons by a Saudi man of religion. Their extremism deepened due to the political situation shaking the region and U.S. bias toward Israel."
The report said the group "had planned to broadcast a video statement after the operation in the name of Abu Musab Zarqawi Brigade, although they had no link to al-Qaida."
It said they were inspired by Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who was killed in a U.S. air strike in June.
Syrian security forces killed the four men who attacked the embassy on September 12, in a gun battle that lasted about 30 minutes.
A Syrian guard and a Syrian bystander were also killed. Twelve people were wounded. No Americans were hurt.
The report, published by the government's news agency, said Syrian security forces later made several arrest in connection with the attack.
They included two members of the Saleh family who bought weapons and explosives for the attack in Lebanon and paid Lebanese smugglers to transport them across the border, it said.
Relations between Riyadh and Damascus have been tense over Syria's support for the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah in its war with Israel.
The report said three militants drove up to the main entrance of the U.S. embassy and tried to storm the complex using automatic rifles and grenades, but were killed.
Another man drove in a van filled with explosives to a side door but was killed before he managed to detonate it.
Although the United States praised the Syrian response, relations between Damascus and Washington plummeted after the attack.
The Syrian government kept Washington in the dark about the investigation and officials said U.S. policies in the region and support for Israel were to blame by provoking the attackers.
A Syrian official said Damascus had no reason to cooperate with Washington because the attack was "a purely Syrian affair".
Diplomats in Damascus said Syria might have squandered an opportunity to improve relations with Washington, which have been deteriorating for years, especially since the U.S. administration imposed sanctions against Syria in 2004, accusing it of supporting terrorism.
Syria's secular government, which crushed an uprising led by the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s, says it is fighting what it describes as terrorists.
In June four young Syrian men were killed as they tried to storm the headquarters of Syrian television. The government said the attempt was the work of a group of youths who had embraced a militant ideology similar to that of al Qaida.