Syria - Syrian vice-president Khaddam resigns

Agence France Presse | December 30, 2005

[HAL9000]

Veteran Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, widely regarded as the architect of his government's Lebanon policy before its troop pullout in April, announced his resignation on Friday.

"I have decided to resign," he told the Dubai-based satellite television Al-Arabiya in an interview from Paris.

Khaddam first asked to resign at a congress of Syria's ruling Baath party in June, but there had been no word since on whether President Bashar al-Assad had accepted the resignation.

At the time, he criticised Syrian foreign policy leading up to the withdrawal from Lebanon after a 29-year deployment under international pressure over former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri's assassination.

[RaginRak]

And books ticket for Switzerland to check on his holdings

[HAL9000]

Reuters -

PRESIDENT ASSAD, OTHER TOP SYRIAN OFFICIALS THREATENED LATE LEBANESE PM HARIRI -FORMER VICE PRESIDENT

[HardStarboard]

More likely he's headed to Iran....they have offered to house Syrian officials under investigation for the Rafik Harari assassination in Lebanon.

In exchange Syria offered to house Iran's nuclear and biological weapons if they are attacked. Evidently they are attempting to capitalize on their experience hiding Saddam's arsenal.

[HAL9000]

Assad, other Syrians, threatened Hariri -Khaddam

DUBAI, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other top officials threatened former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri who was assassinated in February, a former Syrian vice president said.

"Hariri received many threats," Abdel-Halim Khaddam told Al Arabiya television in an interview aired on Friday. "Assad told me he had delivered some very, very harsh words to Hariri ... something like 'I will crush anyone who tries to disobey us'."

A U.N. probe into Hariri's killing has implicated senior Syrian officials.

[Shermy]

He's in France

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051230/wl_afp/syriapoliticskhaddam_051230195540

[HAL9000]

Ex-VP Khaddam denounces Syrian government

DUBAI, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Former Syrian Vice President Abdulhalim Khaddam on Friday denounced the government of President Bashar al-Assad, saying it had committed many mistakes during its domination of neighbouring Lebanon.

In an interview with Arab satellite television Al Arabiya from Paris, Khaddam listed what he said were examples of political blunders by Syria in Lebanon. The channel said it would air the full interview at 1900 GMT.

His remarks were a rare attack on the Syrian government by a former official. Khaddam, veteran aide to Syria's late President Hafez al-Assad, stepped down in June, almost five months after the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

He had been pointman on Lebanon for the late Assad, who ordered Syria's military intervention in the civil war there in 1976. Syrian forces stayed until April this year. In the brief excerpt aired by Al Arabiya, Khaddam criticised Bashar al-Assad's apparent protection of Lt. General Rustom Ghazali, Syria's former intelligence chief in Lebanon. Diplomatic sources Ghazali was among those questioned by U.N. investigators probing Hariri's killing.

"Why is Rustom Ghazali being protected and we all know his vices. This is a question that the Syrians are asking," Khaddam said. "I told Bashar several times that he should remove him."

Damascus, the main power-broker in Lebanon after the 1975-1990 civil war, has denied involvement in the truck bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others. However, in his latest report, U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis said he had more evidence to implicate senior Syrian officials in the assassination.

[HAL9000]

Interesting developments, bumping to Front Page...

[eeevil conservative]

France?

Isn't that the latest craze...

American Sr citizens move to Fl to retire, and Terrorists head to France to die?

I give this man 12 months AT BEST!

[HAL9000]

Agence France-Presse -

Assad threatened Hariri: Syrian vice president

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad threatened former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri just months before he was assassinated, Syria's ex-vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam said Friday.

"I will destroy anyone who tries to hinder our decisions," Assad told Hariri during a meeting in Damascus, Khaddam told Dubai-based television Al-Arabiya in an interview from Paris in which he also announced his resignation.

[M. Espinola]

"More likely he's headed to Iran....they have offered to house Syrian officials under investigation for the Rafik Harari assassination in Lebanon."

That sounds about right. Iran's Islamic dictatorship is full of rats like Khaddam.

This Khaddam has a very long well known history of being one of Syria's top Baathist enforcers, a real thug. Harari's assassination was most likely fined tuned by Syria's top man in Lebanon, plus other hits of prominent Lebanese ordered by Damascus.

"Lebanon will either be united or will be returned to Syria," All of a sudden he is quiting the Syrian régime? Something stinks here.

A brief look back at Khaddam:

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Abdul Halim Khaddam, Vice-President

Born in 1932, Mr Khaddam has exercised considerable influence for three decades and is regarded as a leading hardliner.

Asef Shawkat is said to be very close to Bashar al-Assad

A Baath Party official in the 1960s, he became foreign minister and deputy prime minister in the 1970s.

In 1984 Mr Khaddam was promoted to the vice-presidency, and has worked to assert Syria's dominance over Lebanon. "Lebanon will either be united or will be returned to Syria," he said in 1976.

He remains fiercely opposed to any loosening of the Baath party's grip on power.

In a newspaper interview last year, he said that those who suggested changing the regime either did not understand that this would jeopardise the "stability of the state" or "serve the plans of foreign elements and of Israel".

Source

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"In exchange Syria offered to house Iran's nuclear and biological weapons if they are attacked. Evidently they are attempting to capitalize on their experience hiding Saddam's arsenal."

I believe your overview is right on target.

[strategofr]

Is it just me? I don't get this Syria thing. They assassinated a political leader in Lebanon. This is a new thing for Syria? The whole government is a bunch of killers, always has been.

What's this about? The UN cares about someone being assassinated? Why? They weren't bothered when Saddam killed by the tens of thousands. Syria is interfering in another country? They have occupied, ruled Lebanon for decades, no one cared or did anything.

What gives here?

[Patrick_k]

"I will destroy anyone who tries to hinder our decisions,"

Khaddam was the top Syrian planner of the Syrian "brotherly" relations with Lebanon over more than 35 years. I remember him very well one day of April 1981 on the stairs of the presidential palace of Baabda pronouncing his famous ultimatum of 14 demands that the lebanese government has comply with or face destruction. His flip-flop of last minute does not make of him a good man.