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PRESIDENTIAL NEWS OF THE DAY: Earlier today, President Bush telephoned Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to express deep sorrow after the wounding by U.S. forces of freed hostage Giuliana Sgrena and the killing of a member of her Italian escort in Iraq. Also today, Syrian President Bashar Assad announced a two-stage pullback of his forces to the Lebanese border, but failed to address broad international demands that he completely withdraw Syria's 15,000 troops after nearly 30 years in the country. Assad also did not respond to President Bush's demand just a day earlier that Syria withdraw all its troops and...

Sep. 26, 2004 21:39 Syria seeking to oust Iraqi nuclear scientists By DOUGLAS DAVIS Syria is making desperate efforts to persuade Iran to accept a group of 12 Iraqi nuclear scientists and their families who had sought refuge in Damascus before the US-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein. Quoting Western intelligence officials, the London-based Sunday Telegraph reported that Syrian President Bashar Assad fears that the US will use the presence of the Iraqi scientists as a pretext to target Syria and he is desperate to find a new home for them. The possibility of moving the Iraqi scientists to Iran, a...

Political bickering, poor governance and economic woes - with foreign debt of $53.7b - weigh down the country THERE'S much about Beirut that recalls Singapore: the greenery, the lively, urban lifestyle, good schools and eating places, a colourful port, low crime. But look again. One in four passers-by is not Lebanese, but Syrian - about a million of them in a nation of barely four million native Lebanese. Some 30,000 Syrian troops man roadblocks. Other Syrians work as labourers in the booming construction business. Some beg. And some - installed in Lebanon's intelligence service - help monitor the movements of...

Syrian Accountability Act to Combat Terrorism By Jim Hauser Talon News December 18, 2003WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Last week, President Bush signed into law H.R. 1828, the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003. The legislation calls on the president to impose sanctions on Syria to discourage support for international terrorist groups and the occupation of Lebanon.The bill demands that Syria end support for terrorism; halt the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) along with medium- and long-range missiles; and withdraw the roughly 20,000 troops it has deployed in Lebanon.It also calls on Syria to "enter into...

Says she's ready for headline: 'Congresswoman invites a terrorist' Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, says she has invited Syrian leader Bashar Assad to come to the United States to speak even though his country is designated by the U.S. as a rogue nation and sponsor of terrorism. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas Jackson Lee said Assad so impressed her during her recent terrorism fact-finding mission to Europe and the Middle East she thought he should come to the U.S., the Houston Chronicle reported. "I'm sure someone will write a headline, 'Congresswoman invites a terrorist,'" Jackson Lee said. "But that's not...

Movies and comic books condition Americans to think in terms of the "evil genius," a dangerously insane but diabolically brilliant adversary who carefully and calculatingly plots to destroy the world. Think Lex Luthor attempting to obliterate the California coast, or the Joker scheming to poison Gotham, or the countless forgettable villains who have conspired to change the orbit of the moon in an effort to unleash destructive tidal waves that will destroy the Earth's major cities. For better or worse, this archetype has spilled out of the realm of fantasy and into the real world, coloring how Americans view nonfiction...

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - It is questionable whether Syria will get Israel's message to stop supporting terrorism - a message that Israel sent this weekend when it bombed a terrorist training camp outside of Damascus, experts here are saying. Israeli fighter planes struck the Ayn Tzahab camp some 12 miles outside the Syrian capital early Sunday, less than a day after Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a restaurant in the northern Israeli coastal city of Haifa, killing 19 people. Israeli officials said the strike -- the deepest inside Syrian territory since the 1973 Yom Kippur War --...

<p>Syrian leader Bashar Assad has been handed an opportunity by the United States' victory in Iraq that will decide his place in history. Bashar can follow his father, Hafez Assad, into the pantheon of ruthless tyrants who have killed thousands of their own people and threatened the peace and stability of the Arab world. Or he can decide to cooperate with the United States, turning over fleeing Iraqi officials, eliminating Syria's chemical weapons, and closing down terrorist training camps in Syria and Syrian-controlled Lebanon. If Mr. Assad is smart, he'll learn from Saddam Hussein's mistakes and avoid the wrath of the United States military.</p>

In 1982, the Syrian military repressed an Islamic uprising in the city of Hamat, killing tens of thousands of residents. Last week, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad told a visiting delegation of U.S. legislators that the U.S. could benefit from Syria's experience in fighting terrorism. Among the members of the American delegation were Senator Richard Durbin (IL), House members David Price (NC), Jim Davis (FL), Adam Schiff (CA), and former representative Wayne Owens (UT). Also present at the meeting were Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq Al-Shar' and U.S. Ambassador to Damascus Theodore Kattouf. Following are excerpts from a response to Assad's statements...

An American war on Iraq looks a good way off. But the shadow-boxing has begunGet article background THE sword suspended over the head of Damocles hung, legend says, by a single horsehair. That hanging over the head of Saddam Hussein is only a little more secure. This is a man on whom the world's pre-eminent power has, in effect, declared war. Indeed, unlike most war declarations, George Bush's fatwa against him is personal. America's stated aim is not only to divest Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but also to change the regime in Baghdad. If he were...

Saudi pressure on Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, including a personal message from Crown Prince Abdullah, to end the terror strikes of Palestinian suicide bombers in order to bring about a cease-fire, which will then lead to an international conference on the Saudi-Arab peace proposal, has failed. The outcome is that the Saudis cannot uphold their part of the agreement reached by Abdullah and U.S. President George W. Bush. It is also clear to the Saudis that the movement that Arafat heads, Fatah, and its military wing, are directly linked to the terrorism. In other words, Arafat is involved. Moreover,...