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WMD stashed in Syria?
This is a follow-up to yesterdayâs question about who Nizar Najoef is. Looks to me like heâs pretty credible.
"Nizar Najoef" is more commonly spelled Nizar Nayyouf, and he is a remarkable man. He was a journalist and an activist for liberal reform under Hafez Assad, and as a result spent nine years in prison. In his first prison, Nayyouf tried to organize a prisonersâ rebellion; he was soon transferred to another prison where he promptly began a hunger strike. Finally, he was sent to a military prison where he was subjected to appalling torture, and is apparently partially paralyzed as a result. Nevertheless, Nayyouf somehow managed to smuggle out information about the torture of his fellow prisoners. Numerous human-rights groups and reportersâ organizations tried to intervene in his case; he was finally released in 2001 following a plea from the Vatican. Nayyouf now lives in Europe.
Where does Nayyouf say the WMD is (or was) hidden? In tunnels beneath the town of al-Baida; near the village of Tal Snan; and in "Sjinsjar" (Dutch spelling), a city east of the highway between Hama and Damascus. Nayyouf says he received the information through connections in Syrian intelligence. He believes the U.S. knows all of this, but is biding its time for political reasons. It will act on the information, he told the newspaper, "when the U.S. thinks itâs time to see Assad go."
Is there anything to this? Who knows. Whatâs impressive is that, despite paralysis, blindness, and illness due to torture, Nayyouf is still battling the Syrian Baathists. Not long ago he participated in a press conference accusing the regime of still imprisoning a Lebanese man who disappeared 12 years earlier. Heâs probably right about that. Nayyouf even beat a libel suit brought against him by Syriaâs former vice president (another Assad), after Nayyouf revealed that heâd ordered the murder of political prisoners. Heâs irrepressible.
Posted by: growler 2004-01-06 |
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=23880 |
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