Quick takes / by Ben FrankelMissing links unveiled?
Two years ago a high-level Syrian general was killed; are we getting closer to the truth about the operation that led to his assassination? Also: Musharaf speaks about the past — but what about the future?
Here are three comments on things which caught our eye in yesterday’s papers.
1. Mysterious death
Two years ago, in early August 2008, Brigadier General Mohammad Suleiman was killed by a sniper in his villa at a beach resort near the port city of Tartous.
Syria is not an open society. The movements of high officials — let alone military and intelligence commanders — are not reported in the media. Suleiman, moreover, was a busy man, with a portfolio which required frequent travel (see more below). In fact, he was supposed to accompany President Bashar al Assad to Teheran that week-end, but at the last minute decided to stay in Syria. How did the snipers know that Suleiman did not go to Iran? How did they know that he would be in Tartous that evening?
Sulemian’s killing was the second high-level assassination in Syria that year, following the killing of Hezbollah commander Imad Moughniyah in Damascus in February of 2008.
Reuters reported that Suleiman was a key figure in three interlocking programs: Syria’s nuclear program that the United States accused Syria of pursuing after Israel, on 6 September 2007, destroyed a nuclear reactor being built in eastern Syria. Suleiman was also in charge of military relations between Syria and Iran, and of the transfer of Syrian and Iranian weapons to Hezbollah, and the training of Hezbollah fighters in Syria.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Suleiman was thought to be in charge of smuggling long range missiles across the border into Lebanon.
Sky news reported that in the months before he was killed, Suleiman was in charge of resupplying Hizbollah’s arsenal which was depleted during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. In particular he supplied 220mm rockets with a 70km range. This is the same type of missiles which hit the port of Haifa two years earlier. The general was said to be moving Syrian and Iranian weapons into Lebanon in order to support other pro-Syrian groups in that country.
Suleiman’s high-level position was indicated by a Syrian source who told Sky News that “All the sensitive defense portfolios passed through Suleiman first.”
2. Some of the mystery removed?
Why this walk down memory lane? Because it was revealed that a Syrian teenaged girl Tal al-Mallohi was arrested by the Syrian authorities, accused of spying.
The BBC reports that Syria has accused a teenaged girl, held without charge for nine months, not of spying in the traditional sense —
