| Salt requirement probably in the Debka range — we're talkin' Arab press on a roll... |
The chief of the UN team investigating the murder of former Premier Rafik Hariri, Detlev Mehlis, told the Syrian government that he will question Maher Assad, the Syrian President's brother, "which provoked disturbance in the government and was considered as an offense to Syria's sovereignty," according to Kuwait's As-Siyassah newspaper yesterday.
| That's common in countries where there are some people above the law, especially when investigators are getting close to the truth... |
The paper said "Mehlis has informed the government of his intention to interrogate eight top Syrian officials, including Maher Assad," the head of the Syrian Republican Guard and intelligence. It added that in a bid to gain France's support, Syrian President Bashar Assad  sent military intelligence chief Assef Shawkat to Paris "to offer the French officials an interesting deal," which he believed would discharge Syria from its suspected involvement into Hariri's death.
| The Frenchies are, of course, always the weak link in any kind of diplomatic initiative. Everybody with a hyphen in his name thinks he's Talleyrand or Richelieu... |
The paper said Shawkat met with his French counterpart and an official from the bureau of French President Jacques Chirac. According to the newspaper, the deal included a Syrian pledge to "deploy 50,000 along the Syrian-Iraqi borders to help maintain security, to withdraw the remaining and secret intelligence officials from Lebanon, to hold diplomatic relations with Israel, recognize it as a state and renounce its calls for regaining the Golan Heights." The pledge also included "extradition of terrorists detained in Syrian prisons," added the newspaper.
| Toldja Assad will be gone by 9-11-06. But a.) I'm not convinced he's offered that — it'd be a surrender to the U.S. if he did; and b.) even if he offered, it's doubtful he'd stay bought. For one thing, the Medes and the Persians have too many of their own connections to the internal Syrian levers of power... |
In return, Assad would be discharged from his suspected involvement in Hariri's killing.
| If that's the deal, the evidence is just there, waiting to be picked up. |
The Syrian president has been accused by opposition politicians of being behind Hariri's murder. These views were compounded after the Paris-based Intelligence Online specialized newsletter has said on its internet Web site that Hariri managed to record the elimination threat made by Assad at their last face-to-face meeting in the Syrian capital on a spy pen provided by a Western secret service.
| This is where the salt requirement spikes. That sort of thing does happen, here and there, but the incidences are few and far between and seldom as dramatic is the dictator openly threatening the rebellious pol... |
Hariri had provided copies of the threat to U.S. President George W. Bush, Chirac and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf shortly before he was assassinated, said the newsletter that specializes in intelligence affairs.
| What we had at the time was that Hariri and Jumblatt had received warning that one of them was in danger of being bumped off. That warning was reported to have come through the UN, my guess would be based on information from the French intel service. That's their stomping grounds. |
The Assad-Hariri meeting was held in Damascus a week before Syria forced the Lebanese Parliament virtually at gunpoint to extend President Emile Lahoud's term in office for three extra years on September 3.
| Even though Tom Clancy wouldn't use such a plot device because it'd be too obviously melodramatic, that's actually what happened... |
"It is useful for you to know that Lahoud's term will be extended no matter what. ... I shall not allow you to replace him with anyone else," the recording pen quoted Assad as telling Hariri.
| No doubt in a sinister, kind of Peter Lorre-ish voice. While dressed in a Nehru jacket, petting his cat... |
"You have to bear in mind that I am capable of destroying Lebanon, you included. If I am forced to leave Lebanon, I will leave it a pile of rubble. Your ally Walid Jumblatt must realize the fate awaiting him. The death of his father is the best lesson for him."
 | Villains talk like that. Real-life pols don't, not even Middle Eastern hereditary dictators... |
Intelligence Online said the pen-recorder was probably made available to Hariri by the French foreign security service DGSE, when he told Chirac that he feels threatened.
| No doubt they called on M to have Q fix one up for them. If you fiddled with it, it would explode. There was also a secret button that would turn it into a snare drum for disguise purposes... |
As-Siyassah's report comes as a Syrian newspaper has accused the head of the Progressive Socialist Party, Chouf MP Walid Jumblatt of benefiting from Hariri's murder. "Jumblatt was, along with his servants, the planner of all that happened [in Lebanon] and the first to benefit from the assassination of Rafik Hariri," the weekly economic newspaper Al-Iktissadiyya said of the former Damascus ally yesterday.
| On the other hand, the Syrian regime does tend to act like comic book bad guys, doesn't it? |
The newspaper also claimed that Jumblatt was responsible for a backlash against Syrians in Lebanon that followed Hariri's killing, which Syrian officials say killed 37 workers and wounded 280 people. "Walid Jumblatt has a problem with the Syrian people, who will never forgive those who incite and encourage the killing of Syrian citizens," it said. Syrians "will not forget the Syrian blood that flowed in Lebanon because of [Jumblatt's] racist declarations, heinous insults and public incitements [to violence] against all that is Syrian in Lebanon," the newspaper said. "Jumblatt is not welcome in Syria," it added. |