Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syria's spy chiefs meet untimely deaths

2015-04-27

[al-Monitor] It seems that a curse has befallen the Syrian intelligence officers who took up posts under the Syrian tutelage in Leb from 1990 to 2005. Ten years following the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Leb on April 26, 2005, a series of tragic events has befallen these security officials. One by one, their names have been struck off the "Leb's Syrians" list. Most recently, Rustom Ghazaleh was pronounced dead in Damascus on April 24. His death came weeks after news of a mysterious accident in February, involving his beating and torture at the hands of a Damascus intelligence branch. Ghazi Kanaan was the first to be struck by the "Lebanese curse." He came to Leb in 1984 as head of Syria's security apparatus in Leb, assigned to the post by the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. Not long after the Syrian army took full control of Leb in the fall of 1990, Kanaan became the de facto ruler of the Lebanese Republic. He would suggest a candidate for Leb's presidential elections, and impose ministers, members of parliament and public administration employees. He continued to have full rein over Leb until his superiors moved him from Beirut to Damascus in October 2002. At the time, Lebanese officials bade him farewell as if he were the head of state. The Lebanese president awarded him the Medal of the National Order of the Cedar -- an honorary title only awarded to heads of state -- while Prime Minister Rafik Hariri presented him the "Key to Beirut," an exceptional move reserved for visiting foreign heads of state.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syria's Assad Fires Two Top Spy Chiefs

2015-03-21

[AnNahar] Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... has fired two top intelligence chiefs after a fight between the two officials, a high-ranking security source in Damascus told AFP on Friday. "General Rustom Ghazaleh, head of political intelligence, and General Rafiq Shehadeh, head of military intelligence, were fired at the beginning of the week by President Assad after a violent dispute between the two men," the source said. Ghazaleh has been replaced by his former deputy, Nazih Hassoun, with Mohammed Mahalla taking over as military intelligence chief, the source added. The two men were replaced after a violent argument over Ghazaleh's involvement in the southern front of the conflict in Syria, according to the source. Ghazaleh had reportedly sought greater involvement in the battle against rebel fighters in southern Daraa province, where he was born. oBut Shehadeh "was categorically opposed to him taking part in the battle" being waged in the area by regime troops backed by Leb's Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... , the source said. "A violent disagreement erupted and Shehadeh's men beat up Ghazaleh badly," the source said. Ghazaleh was briefly hospitalized after the incident two weeks ago, but was readmitted later on suffering complications related to hypertension. The source said Ghazaleh was currently in "critical condition". Ghazaleh and Shehadeh both took their posts in July 2012, after being promoted following a bombing that killed four top regime figures. Shehadeh was previously head of military intelligence in central Homs province, an early bastion of the opposition to Assad's regime. Ghazaleh was head of military security in Damascus before his 2012 promotion. He is considered a strongman of Assad, since he became president in 2000, succeeding his father Hafez. In 2002, Ghazaleh was named head of Syrian military intelligence in Leb, where he was accused of intervening extensively in the country's political affairs. He was also frequently named by witnesses as a suspect in the planning of the 2005 liquidation of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, though he has not been indicted by the international tribunal prosecuting the murder.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Rustom Ghazaleh leaves hospital after 'beating'

2015-03-07

[Beirut Daily Star] A high-ranking Syrian intelligence official has left a Damascus hospital after receiving treatment for injuries suffered in a beating ordered by a colleague over a dispute involving Iranian influence in Syria, political sources told The Daily Star. Sources familiar with the issue said that Lt. Gen. Rustom Ghazaleh, who heads the powerful political intelligence branch, was discharged from the Shami Hospital in the Syrian capital Thursday. His hospitalization, they said, took place after he received a severe beating by a security detail acting at the orders of Lt. Gen. Rafik Shehadeh, the head of military intelligence. Ghazaleh received a telephone call from Shehadeh, ordering him to report to his office. When Ghazaleh arrived for the meeting he was beaten severely by Shehadeh's bodyguards, who later dumped him at the entrance of the hospital, they said. Also, several physicians close to Free Patriotic Movement Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic... leader Michel Aoun ...a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah... traveled to Damascus early in the week to assist in Ghazaleh's treatment, the sources said. The team was made up of a cardiologist, a neurologist and an emergency treatment specialist. The incident resulted from the regime's growing anger at Ghazaleh over a simmering dispute believed to involve the role of non-Syrian forces such as Iran and Leb's Hezbollah in directing the war effort. The sources said that Ghazaleh had refused to hand over his villa in his native village of Qarfa in Deraa to military personnel from Iran and Hezbollah involved in battling rebel groups in the south. The villa exploded in mid-December, according to a video posted to YouTube. A shadowy pro-regime group calling itself the National Resistance Movement claimed to have deliberately destroyed the residence so that it would not fall into the hands of rebel militias that were close to overrunning the village. Some observers read the incident as an open challenge to the regime and its allies. However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... several pro-regime sources said they had spoken to Ghazaleh while he was in the hospital and were told he had broken his shoulder in a combat-related incident in his home province of Deraa in southern Syria. They said a mortar bomb went kaboom! next to a vehicle he was riding in while involved in military operations in Deraa, causing it to overturn.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Siddiq Says he Owns 7 Tapes that Implicate Top Syrian Officers in Hariri's Murder

2011-01-25

[An Nahar] "False Witness" Mohammed Zuhair Siddiq has unveiled that he holds seven important recordings that implicate top Syrian officers in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's liquidation. Siddiq called al-Jadid TV's anchorman George Salibi during his talk show Sunday night and made the revelation. He said he is going to deliver the tapes to the Special Tribunal for Leb at The Hague. He exposed one of the recordings in which a high-ranking Syrian officer and his subordinate discuss about Abu Adas and how he refuses to execute orders to carry out the liquidation because he only kills infidels (koffar). The high-ranking officer then asked his subordinate: "You animal, didn't you tell him that Hariri is an infidel?" Siddiq said many people in the March 8 coalition would recognize the officer which he refused to name. Media reports said the man is Brig. Gen. Rustom Ghazaleh, the former head of Syria's military intelligence in Leb. The "false witness" told the TV station that he obtained the recordings from Syria's Interior Minister from 2004 to 2005, and long-time head of Syria's security apparatus in Leb, Ghazi Kanaan. Siddiq then said he had warned Syria's hereditary President Bashar Pencilneck Assad ... who used to be referred to in the Egyptian press as the boy president ... several times about the Abu Adas issue and Prime Minister Mohammed Naji Otari had sent an envoy to Spain to negotiate with the "false witness." Asked whether he had met with Caretaker Premier Saad Hariri in Spain, Siddiq confirmed that such a meeting took place at the request of the STL. He stressed that the talks were his only meeting with Hariri and Col. Wissam Hassan. He said that both were skeptical about him and did not believe him. Siddiq added that he never met them again. Salibi questioned his motives behind coming up with such information after five years of silence and on the eve of the parliamentary consultations to name a new premier. Siddiq's revelation also came after broadcasts on al-Jadid of interviews conducted by U.N. Sherlocks and a conversation between Hariri and Siddiq in Spain.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Shiite leader slams Nasrallah for partnering with 'criminal Syria'

2007-11-02

Head of the Free Shiite Movement Sheikh Mohammed Hajj Hassan criticized Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah for defending "criminal cliques and renowned Syrian intelligence agents." Whoa. He'd better be careful starting his car. Hassan stressed the "need to exert efforts in order to establish a free state capable of extending authority over all its territories, end security centers and militia protectorate as well as monitoring the arms phenomena and the intimidations against the country's symbols." He called on "inclined Lebanese" to rid themselves of Syrian President Bashar Assad and Syria's former intelligence chief Rustom Ghazaleh. Hassan also warned against dragging Lebanon into a political vacuum or chaos.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Rana Qoleilat claims innocence in TV interview

2006-03-30

Rana Qoleilat, the Al-Madina Bank executive wanted on suspicion of involvement in a banking scandal, said she was innocent of all allegations in her first media appearance Tuesday. The fugitive alleged from her Brazilian prison cell that her ex-husband Adnan Abu Ayyash paid Syria's former intelligence chief in Lebanon Rustom Ghazaleh to have her thrown in jail. In an interview with Brazil's Globo Television, Qoleilat said: "Rustom Ghazaleh was extorting money from rich and influential Lebanese like me." A transcript of the interview was published in Lebanese daily Al-Mustaqbal Tuesday. "I was jailed because I didn't pay Ghazaleh. It was my ex-husband who paid him to put me in jail," she added. Qoleilat blamed Al-Madina's collapse on Ayyash, who she claims withdrew $490 million to invest in the stock market. "That is when all the troubles began," she said. The couple were married for 10 years from 1992. When Ayyash was unable to return the money, Qoleilat and her family "rushed to his aid" so that he could reimburse the bank's depositors, she added. "When the scandal broke, they started accusing me, when I didn't steal anything. I didn't need to steal because [Ayyash] gave me complete freedom over his private accounts," she said. "He is using his influence to keep me in prison to humiliate me," she said, adding "he threw me in a pit full of rats and garbage."

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

UN panel questions Syrian spies

2006-01-17

Two Syrian intelligence officers are giving evidence in Vienna again to the UN commission investigating the murder of Rafiq al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister. The two officials are Syria's former head of intelligence in Lebanon, Rustom Ghazale, and his deputy, retired colonel Samih Kashaami, both of whom were heard by the commission in December. "I think it has begun," Syria's ambassador in Austria, Safwan Ghanem, told AFP, adding he did not expect the hearings to last beyond Monday. The December hearings involved three other Syrians: Abdelkarim Abbas, head of intelligence in Palestine, Zaher Yussef, head of communications and Jameh Jameh, another of Ghazale's deputies. The commission, led since last week by Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz, also wants to speak to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Shareh.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Hawi's family demand Houssam be questioned

2006-01-05

The family of George Hawi, late head of the Communist Party, demanded Wednesday that Lebanese authorities question the infamous masked Syrian witness Houssam Houssam as a suspect in Hawi's murder. Showing pictures of Houssam amongst crowds of onlookers in the immediate aftermath of Hawi's assassination on June 21, Rafi Madoyan, Hawi's step-son, said: "It is high time the Lebanese authorities investigate Hawi's murder and arrest those responsible for it." Discovered by local photographer Wael Ladeki, the pictures were first published by the Elaph website. "It's weird how such a witness was present at several crime sites without being arrested," Madoyan said. According to Houssam's fiance, he was also at the site in Ain al-Mreisseh where former premier Rafik Hariri was assassinated, minutes before the explosion happened. "We, the family of George Hawi, also ask the Lebanese Judiciary to interview Rustom Ghazaleh and all Lebanese and Syrian security officials to find the answer to why this man, who works with the Syrian Intelligence, was present at all those crime scenes," Madoyan said. "The presence of this man at all those crime scenes also make us wonder about the role of the Syrian intelligence and their Lebanese counterparts and partners in all those murders," Madoyan said. He described how Houssam used to live in an apartment right next to Hawi's murder scene in Wata Mousaitbeh and how he "suddenly was out of reach and sight on the days following the attempt."

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

UN investigators grilled former Syrian intelligence chief

2005-12-07

UN investigators have grilled the former Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon, Rustom Ghazaleh, and his deputy over former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri’s murder, Al-Hayat newspaper reported on Tuesday. Ghazaleh and Jameh Jameh were heard Monday behind closed doors at UN offices in Vienna, where three other Syrian witnesses are also due to be probed by the UN team, the London-based Arabic daily said. It said the head of the Palestinian affairs department in the Syrian intelligence services, Abdelkarim Abbas, communications chief Zaher Yussef, and retired Colonel Samih al-Kashaani would testify on Wednesday. Monday’s questioning focused on “determining the nature of the duties of the Syrian officers” in Lebanon before Hariri was murdered in a massive bomb blast on February 14 that also killed 20 other people, Al-Hayat said, quoting unnamed sources. The UN investigators “referred to recorded statements of phone conversations that took place between (Ghazaleh) and Lebanese political figures”, the sources told Al-Hayat. They likewise tried to determine any links between the Syrian officers and some suspects in the case who have said they “contributed directly or indirectly in provoking or planning the assassination”, it said.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Mehlis set to continue mission

2005-12-05

BEIRUT: Detlev Mehlis is likely to stay on, Lebanese political sources said on Sunday, after Beirut asked for the probe to be extended. The interrogations of five Syrian officials are also expected to begin Monday at UN headquarters in Vienna without the supervision of UN chief investigator Detlev Mehlis. A team of investigators from the UN investigating team are expected to carry out the interrogations of the five Syrian officers regarding the crime. It is understood that Brigadier General Rustom Ghazaleh, the head of Syria's intelligence apparatus in Lebanon from 2002 until the Syrian withdrawal in 2005, and his assistant Intelligence Colonel Jamaa Jamaa, will be among the five officials questioned. Too bad we couldn't offer our facilities at Diego Garcia for questioning, but they're secret, ya know. It is also understood that a key Syrian witness, Mohammad Zuheir Siddiq, is being detained in France on suspicion of having provided the UN team with false information regarding Syrian and Lebanese officials. Another Syrian key witness, Houssam Taher Houssam, said last week he had given false testimony to the probe indicting Syrian and Lebanese officials in Hariri's murder. Plots! Deep-laid plots! Nefarious, deep-laid plots! Sinister, nefarious deep-laid plots!

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Mehlis to meet Syrian official for venue talks

2005-11-18

BEIRUT - Detlev Mehlis, the head of the United Nations team probing the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, will meet a senior Syrian official in Spain to agree on a venue for questioning six Syrian suspects, a Syrian source confirmed Friday. Mehlis will meet Raid Daudi, legal counsellor at a branch of the Syrian Foreign Ministry in Barcelona, Spain, later Friday. According to the Syrian source contacted from Beirut, the two men are scheduled to examine a Syrian proposal to conduct an interrogation at the headquarters of a U.N. observer force in the Golan Heights. "Besides the U.N. headquarters, Syria is for holding the questioning in the German city of Cologne or in Turkey," the source said. I'm surprised they'd let the "suspects" get that far away from Syrian control. Mehlis reportedly wants to interview Syrian officials in the U.N. offices in Monteverde, east of Beirut, over Hariri's killing in a February 14 bomb blast. "The Syrian authorities are refusing Lebanon for certain security reasons," the source said. Like they might get strung up The six officers include the brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Assef Shawkat, who is head of Syria's military intelligence. Apart from Shawkat, Mehlis also wants to question Bahjat Suleiman, former domestic intelligence chief, the former head of military intelligence in Lebanon, Rustom Ghazaleh, and his deputy Jamaa Jamaa.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Mystery Military Moves in Damascus

2005-11-04

Reports made the rounds in the past 24 hours about military movements around the Damascus houses of Syrian officials mentioned by U.N. chief investigator Detlev Mehlis in connection with the assassination of 5-time Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, An Nahar reported on Thursday. "These reports have raised questions on whether these movements were precautionary measures or for other purposes," said the terse report of 44 words on An Nahar's page-one. The report was carried under this headline: "Reports of Movements in Damascus the Nature of Which Could Not Be Determined." The story coincided with leaks that German Prosecutor Detlev Mehlis and his team were deliberating at their Monteverde headquarters northeast of Beirut the list of Syrian intelligence chiefs that they want to interrogate next week. The commission reportedly prefers to conduct the interrogations at Monteverde but President Assad's regime has a right to have a say on the interrogation venue but not to object to anyone in Syria the commission demands to question under Security Council Resolution 1636. There is no doubt that the Mehlis commission is bent on interrogating Assad's younger brother Maher, who is the commander of the presidential guard brigade, and brother-in-law Gen. Assef Shawkat, who heads Syria's military intelligence service. Another officer marked for interrogation is Brig. Gen. Rustom Ghazaleh, who headed Syria's military intelligence apparatus in Lebanon when Hariri was killed Feb. 14. The assets of a Lebanese woman suspected of being Ghazaleh's wife, Lubna Oweidat, have been frozen at instructions from the Mehlis commission along with the accounts of four additional Lebanese army officers, Saad Hariri's Al Mustaqbal newspaper reported on Thursday. Among the officers targeted by the financial crackdown is air force pilot Wassef Serhal, who is in charge of foreign relations at the presidential palace and is reported to have resigned his post and his membership of the presidential guard brigade over the arrest of the brigade's commander Gen. Mustafa Hamdan as a primary suspect in Hariri's assassination, Al Mustaqbal said. The other three officers were identified by Al Mustaqbal as Col. Elias Sassin, commander of the special squads of the presidential guard brigade, Col. Mohammed Mossin, President Lahoud's personal aide de camp and Brig. Gen. Faisal al Rashid, former commander of the regional department of the state security service

Link

Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-12 More