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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Assef Shawkat under House arrest over Mughniyeh murder |
| 2008-04-07 |
| General Assef Shawkat, the brother in law of Syrian president Basher al Assad has been put under heavily guarded house arrest following the assassination of Lebanon's Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh , according to former Syrian VP Abdel Halim Khaddam. Speaking from self-imposed exile in France, Khaddam said Shawkat is banned from traveling. Khaddam, who was closely allied with former Syrian president Hafez Assad ( Bashar's father) , told the Lebanese newspaper Al-Mustaqbal that the arrest was made after Shawkat claimed the probe he was conducting into Mughniyeh's death showed that the explosion occurred inside Mughniyeh's booby trapped car , whch implied that the assassins came from Syria. "Following this revelation, Shawkat was removed from the investigation which was transferred to General Hafez Makhlouf (Assad's first cousin)" said Khaddam. Khaddam asserted that Assad used the assassination of Mughniyeh to bring about the dismissal of Shawkat and to appoint his cousin Makhlouf instead . Khaddam said that Syria's attempts to blame the killing of Mughniyeh on Arab intelligence services were "stupid" and "naive." "The Syrian regime tried to exert pressure on several Arab countries, to blackmail them and force them to participate in the Arab Summit in Damascus," claimed Khaddam. Khaddam noted that Mughiyeh managed to hide for 25 years from foreign intelligence agencies, from his associates in Hezbollah and from his neighbors. "During that time, he was subjected to Iranian and Syrian monitoring, so how is it possible that Arab agencies were involved in the assassination?" On Sunday, Syria is set to announce the results of the probe into Mughniyeh's death. The Ba'ath Party expelled Khaddam from Syria in 2005 after he blasted Syrian President Bashar Assad's "political blunders" in dealings with Lebanon. He has since been living in exile in Paris. In 2006, Khaddam announced that he was forming a "government in exile" to end Assad's. He also said he believed that Assad ordered the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Ya Libnan has reported Saturday that Bushra al Assad , Shawkat's wife and sister of Syrian president Bashar al Assad has been living in Paris along with her two children since Lebanon's Hezbollah commander was murdered. She was expecting to be joined by her husband as soon as gets fired. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 This is one of Dad's hold-overs that pencil-neck can't do anything about. |
| Posted by: Chief Running Gag 2008-04-07 14:28 |
| #1 Speaking personally, the warm fuzzy glow I got when Mugniyeh was killed has had the longest half-life of the WOT so far. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2008-04-07 08:55 |