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Last update - 17:40 10/08/2008
Slain Assad aide reportedly gave anti-aircraft missiles to Hezbollah
By Haaretz Service
Tags: Tehran, Peace Talks, Syria 

The Sunday Times has reported that a key aide to Syrian President Bashar Assad who was assassinated last weekend had been providing the Lebanon-based guerilla group Hezbollah with advanced anti-aircraft missiles. The British paper based its report on Middle Eastern sources.

The assassinated aide, Brigadier-General Muhammad Suleiman, 49, was killed by a sniper as he sat in the garden of his summer house near the northern Syrian port city of Tartus.

Once deployed and operative, the mobile Syrian SA-8 missiles could threaten the dominance of the Israel Air Force over Lebanon. A senior IAF officer told Haaretz Tuesday that if Hezbollah installs advanced anti-aircraft batteries in Lebanon, the air force will have to alter its overflights of Lebanon significantly.
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Suleiman was "more important than anyone else," the Sunday Times quoted the London-based Saudi paper Al-Sharq al-Awsat as saying last week: "He was senior even to the defense minister. He knew everything."

The British newspaper also described Suleiman as having been President Bashar al-Assad's personal mentor since 1994, after the death of the president's brother Basel in a car accident. Assad later appointed Suleiman as his operations officer and made him responsible for protecting the regime.

Report: Iran-Syria ties strained over Israel peace talks

Israel Radio reported on Sunday that relations between Damascus and Tehran are currently strained over Syria's indirect peace talks with Israel, quoting a report in the London-based newspaper Al Hayat.

According to the report, the tensions between the two allies over the negotiations were the focus of Syrian President Bashar Assad's visit to Tehran last week.

The report came amid heightened tensions between Jerusalem and Tehran over Iran's nuclear aspirations and its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel's destruction.

In May, Israel and Syria announced that they had been conducting indirect peace talks under Turkish mediation. The last round of direct peace talks between the two countries broke down in 2000 over the details of Israel's proposed withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

Senior officials in Jerusalem confirmed last week that Syria has carried out a number of measures in recent weeks that reflect it is taking talks with Israel seriously.

The sources refused to say whether they were referring to such measures as lowering the alert levels of the Syrian army or stemming the flow of arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon through its territory, but they did say that the effects of the measures were "tangible."



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      1.   Syria - Iran 11:11  |  Philippe 10/08/08
      2.   Syria is collaborating with the enemies of Israel - so first... 12:16  |  Jean Van Daem 10/08/08
      3.   To Philippe 12:18  |  Israeli 10/08/08
      4.   Go Mossad! 12:22  |  bored 10/08/08
      5.   Long Live The Mossad 12:45  |  Khaled - Lebanon 10/08/08
      6.   Oh look, here comes another bogeyman to frighten you 13:14  |  Clickfool 10/08/08
      7.   That`s entertainment! 13:17  |  Natallie Durson 10/08/08
      8.   great job 13:17  |  Cipora Julianna Kohn 10/08/08
      9.   Syria Violate UNSC 1701 14:47  |  Joseph.E 10/08/08
      10.   For Jean van Daem, the Voice of the Avocado # 2 15:07  |  Clickfool 10/08/08
      11.   Anti- aircraft missiles...so what? 15:15  |  Palestinian Brit 10/08/08
      12.   The situation is getting even worse for Israel! 15:17  |  Persian Hero 10/08/08
      13.   You play with fire, you get burned 16:48  |  Dan 10/08/08
      14.   Ugly murder 17:04  |  Fritz T. 10/08/08
      15.   "Ugly murder," Fritz T.? 17:33  |  Fish 10/08/08
      16.   #8 CJ Kohn 18:02  |  Mark B. 10/08/08
      17.   What is next? 18:40  |  Mohamad from Lebanon 10/08/08
      18.   Too big for his boots, murder is murdered 19:01  |  Brian V Hunt 10/08/08
      19.   Considering the source 19:36  |  Mark Lincoln 10/08/08
      20.   "lebanon" - a countdown to disaster 20:26  |  Arie 10/08/08
      21.   #16, Mark B 22:10  |  Cipora Julianna Kohn 10/08/08
      22.   Cipora #8... gloating is not good policy... 22:53  |  Esther 10/08/08
      23.   "SUNDAY TIMES" ; AN ORGAN OF RUPERT MURDOCH-ZIONIST MEDIA EMPIRE 23:07  |  JACKAL 10/08/08
      24.   #21 Cipora J. Kohn 23:38  |  Mark B. 10/08/08
      25.   #23 IT`S MUCH BIGGER THAN YOU CAN EVER IMAGINE !! 03:14  |  AVRUM 11/08/08
      26.   c j kohn re assassins 03:37  |  potobac 11/08/08
      27.   cj Kohn 04:47  |  geoff 11/08/08
      28.   geoff 27 05:54  |  potobac 11/08/08
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