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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iraqi Baathists in Syria hold first public meeting
2010-04-30
Iraq's banned Baath party, booted out of power in the 2003 US-led invasion, held its first public meeting in the Syrian capital on Thursday.

"We have launched negotiations to reunite the party," Ghazwan Qubaissi, the number two in a wing led by Mohammed Yunes al-Ahmad, a former governor of Mosul under now executed dictator and Baath chief Saddam Hussein, told AFP.

"There is no difference between Baath party members here and those there (inside Iraq) ... All are contributing to the liberation of the country," he said at a meeting in a Damascus cultural centre attended by 300-500 people.

He was referring to a wing led by Ezzat Ibrahim al-Duri, Saddam's number two and the highest-ranking party official still at large, seven years after the invasion which split the Baath into Duri- and Ahmad-led factions.
Or perhaps not at large — we still await firm reports.
Several senior Iraqi Baath officials fled after Saddam's ouster to neighbouring Syria, which itself is ruled by a rival wing of the Baath party, an Arab nationalist movement.
Posted by:abu Chuck al Ameriki

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