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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syrian 'Agent' Charged with Spying on Protesters in U.S., Embassy Denies

2011-10-13

[An Nahar] A Syrian-born U.S. citizen has been charged with spying on anti-Assad protesters and providing recordings to the regime's intelligence agents in a bid to silence the opposition, U.S. officials said Wednesday, but the Syrian embassy in Washington denied such allegations. A federal grand jury charged Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid, 47, on October 5 in a six-count indictment for his efforts against activists in the United States and Syria opposed to Syrian President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's Despoiler of Latakia... regime. He was set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Tuesday. The Leesburg, Virginia man was charged with conspiracy and acting as a Syrian government agent in the United States without notifying the US attorney general as required by law. He was also charged on two counts of providing false statements on a firearms purchase form and two counts of providing false statements to federal law enforcement. The naturalized American, also known as "Alex Soueid" and "Anas Alswaid," was due to make an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan at 2:00 pm (1800 GMT) in Alexandria, Virginia. The charges came amid escalating tensions between Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... and Washington over the Syrian government's months-long crackdown on opposition protests seeking to oust Assad. In July, top State Department officials summoned Syrian Ambassador Imad Mustapha to discuss reports that embassy staff had filmed "peaceful" U.S. protests against the Syrian regime. As part of his conspiracy, Soueid and others intended to "undermine, silence, intimidate and potentially harm persons in the United States and Syria who protested against the government of Syria and President al-Assad, all at the direction and control of the government of Syria and Syrian officials," the indictment said. Soueid was said to have ordered individuals to make audio and video recordings of anti-regime protests in both countries and of conversations with activists that he would then pass on to the Syrian mukhabarat, or intelligence agents, and other government officials. From about April 2 to June 10, Soueid emailed a Syrian intelligence agent about 20 audio and video recordings taped in the United States, according to the indictment. He discussed individual protesters using assigned "product codes" and also provided their contact information. "We're in his ring now, (very) important details I have for you," Soueid wrote in an April 6 email to a Syrian embassy official that included a link to a website for protesters in the United States. During a late June-early July trip to Syria paid for by the government, Soueid was said to have met with Assad and spoken with him in private. But when questioned by FBI agents around August 3, Soueid denied he had ever recorded or collected information on people in the United States and or shared any such data with Syrian government officials. Soueid is also accused of lying on his application to purchase a 9mm pistol. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison on the spying charges, 15 years for the firearms charge and 10 years for making false statements to federal Sherlocks. Reacting to the news of Soueid's arrest, the embassy said in a statement: "Neither Mr. Soueid nor any other citizen of the US is an agent of the Syrian government." A federal grand jury charged Soueid on October 5 in a six-count indictment for spying on Syrian opposition activists in the United States and Syria and providing recordings to the regime's intelligence agents. The Leesburg, Virginia, man was charged with conspiracy and acting as a Syrian government agent in the United States without notifying the US attorney general as required by law. But the Syrian embassy in Washington said the allegation that a US citizen was working with Damascus "to intimidate US citizens is absolutely baseless and totally unacceptable." "Contrary to the statement of the Department of Justice, Mr. Soueid is not an agent of any Syrian institution; he never worked under directions or control of any Syrian official," it added. It also denied that the Syrian government had paid travel expenses or any kinds of funds to Soueid, and rejected the notion that he had met privately with Assad. Soueid "has never provided any individual at the Syrian embassy in the US with any information regarding US protesters or otherwise. This is a flagrant effort to defame the embassy of Syria based on sheer lies and fabrications," the statement said. The embassy also challenged the Justice Department to provide evidence to back up the allegations, which it called "a campaign of distortion and fabrications."

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Home Front: WoT

Syrian 'agent' charged in US with spying on protesters

2011-10-12

AFP- A Syrian-born US citizen has been charged with spying on anti-Assad protesters and providing recordings to the regime's intelligence agents in a bid to silence the opposition, US officials said Wednesday. A federal grand jury charged Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid, 47, on October 5 in a six-count indictment for his efforts against activists in the United States and Syria opposed to Syrian President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Latakia... 's regime. He was placed in long-term storage Tuesday. The Leesburg, Virginia man was charged with conspiracy and acting as a Syrian government agent in the United States without notifying the US attorney general as required by law. He was also charged on two counts of providing false statements on a firearms purchase form and two counts of providing false statements to federal law enforcement. The naturalized American, also known as "Alex Soueid" and "Anas Alswaid," was due to make an initial appearance before US Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan at 2:00 pm (1800 GMT) in Alexandria, Virginia. The charges came amid escalating tensions between Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... and Washington over the Syrian government's months-long crackdown on opposition protests seeking to oust Assad. In July, top State Department officials summoned Syrian Ambassador Imad Mustapha to discuss reports that embassy staff had filmed "peaceful" US protests against the Syrian regime. As part of his conspiracy, Soueid and others intended to "undermine, silence, intimidate and potentially harm persons in the United States and Syria who protested against the government of Syria and President al-Assad, all at the direction and control of the government of Syria and Syrian officials," the indictment said. Soueid was said to have ordered individuals to make audio and video recordings of anti-regime protests in both countries and of conversations with activists that he would then pass on to the Syrian mukhabarat, or intelligence agents, and other government officials. From about April 2 to June 10, Soueid emailed a Syrian intelligence agent about 20 audio and video recordings taped in the United States, according to the indictment. He discussed individual protesters using assigned "product codes" and also provided their contact information. "We're in his ring now, (very) important details I have for you," Soueid wrote in an April 6 email to a Syrian embassy official that included a link to a website for protesters in the United States. During a late June-early July trip to Syria paid for by the government, Soueid was said to have met with Assad and spoken with him in private. But when questioned by FBI agents around August 3, Soueid denied he had ever recorded or collected information on people in the United States and or shared any such data with Syrian government officials. Soueid is also accused of lying on his application to purchase a 9mm pistol. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison on the spying charges, 15 years for the firearms charge and 10 years for making false statements to federal Sherlocks.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

U.S. Summons Syrian Ambassador over Attack on Diplomat

2011-10-01

[An Nahar] The United States said Friday it summoned the Syrian ambassador to Washington to read him "the riot act" after President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... supporters tried to attack the U.S. envoy in Damascus. ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... Ambassador Imad Mustapha "was called in to the State Department ... and read the riot act about this incident," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told news hounds. She added that Mustapha's meeting with Jeffrey Feltman, the assistant secretary of state for near East affairs, took place late Thursday, hours after Assad's supporters tried to attack U.S. ambassador Robert Ford in Damascus. Mustapha "was reminded that Ambassador Ford is the personal representative of the president (Barack B.O. Obama) and an attack on Ford is an attack on the United States," Nuland said. "He was also asked for compensation for our damaged vehicles," she said, adding "a very strong set of representations were made again about their Vienna convention responsibilities" to protect U.S. diplomats. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another John Marshall ... demanded that Syria "take every possible step" to protect U.S. diplomats after a front man said a mob tried to attack Ford and embassy staff as they visited a Syrian opposition leader in Damascus. Clinton's deputy front man Mark Toner said the pro-regime demonstrators seriously damaged U.S. vehicles and pelted the visitors with tomatoes but did not hurt Ford or his staff. Opposition figure Hassan Abdelazim, whom the U.S. ambassador had arrived to meet, told AFP that the mob "tried to break down the door of my office, but didn't succeed" during a siege that lasted two hours. Toner charged that Assad's regime was behind the incident in what he said amounts to a campaign aimed at intimidating U.S. diplomats as they carry out their normal duties.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Kerry still rooted in attacking Bush while in Syria

2009-02-22

In a sign that President Barack Obama may be seeking better ties, several U.S. congressmen have passed through Syria in the last few days, including Sen. John Kerry, who arrived Saturday and met with President Bashar Assad. The State Department also announced Friday it has scheduled a meeting next week with Syria's ambassador to the U.S. to discuss differences between the two countries—the first such meeting in months. The congressional delegations, led by Democrats, are carrying the message that America wants to engage countries it has been at odds with if they are willing, as Obama puts it, to unclench their fists. Kerry, who heads the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, did not speak after his meetings in Syria Saturday. But during his stop in Beirut on Wednesday, Kerry said the U.S. would renew diplomacy with Syria but in return expected Syria to "change its behavior"—particularly on Iraq and Lebanon. "But unlike the Bush administration that believed you could simply tell people what to do and walk away and wait for them to do it, we believe we have to engage in a discussion," Kerry said in Beirut. That isn't what Bush said at all. What he said was, "we will stand with people who stand for liberty." Now tell us, Jawn, just what do you 'discuss' with a ruthless dictator like Pencilneck? "And so we are going to renew diplomacy but without any illusions, without any naivete, without any misplaced belief that just by talking, things will automatically happen," the Massachusetts senator added. "We'll talk, and talk, and talk, and we'll be confident that nothing will happen," he added. Besides Kerry, the other Congress members on separate visits were Sen. Benjamin Zelig Cardin of Maryland and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Howard Berman of California. There are concerns that new American openness toward Damascus may only be cosmetic, because the long-standing differences between the countries have not changed much. Syria's ambassador to Washington described the congressional visits to Damascus as being "of extreme importance and depth." But he stressed he was still waiting to see if the visits change "the manner of dialogue between us and America." "Let us see what are the goals we all want to reach, where we agree, where we disagree," Imad Mustapha told The Associated Press in Damascus. Mustapha is to meet with Jeffrey D. Feltman, the acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, according to State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid, in the belief that direct engagement with Syria will advance U.S. interests. "Our concerns include Syria's support to terrorist groups and networks, Syria's pursuit of nuclear and unconventional weaponry, interference in Lebanon and a worsening human rights situation," he said Friday. And allowing terrorists through their border with Iraq. Already during their trips to the Middle East, Kerry and Cardin repeated the previous American language demanding Damascus change its ways in terms of its ties to Iran and backing of militant groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinian Hamas. But Assad has sent signals he wants to work with Washington. In an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian published this week, Assad lied when he said he was impressed by Obama's friendly gestures and welcomed the U.S. delegations to Syria. But he also said he is still waiting to see results. "We are still in the period of gestures and signals. There is nothing real yet," he said. 'Real' isn't in the Bambi lexicon ... Syrian political analyst Imad Shueibi was optimistic that U.S.-Syria relations would change from a period of "the wrestling of wills to the sharing of wills." "What is happening is not just checking the pulse," he said of the congressional visits. "It is an attempt to define the possible horizons in the relations ahead."

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Evidence Implicates Assad Personally in NKor Nuclear Deal

2007-10-29

DEBKA. Salt to taste. President Bashar Assad was personally involved in Damascus’ nuclear deal with Pyongyang. Documentary proofs of this, obtained from the presidential bureau and signed by Assad in person, are now in the hands of the US and Israeli intelligence services, DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report. In one, Assad hands down a specific order in his own handwriting that North Korea not be charged for Syrian goods, including an annual shipment of 100,000 tons of Durham wheat for five years worth a total of $120 million. This is the equivalent of the value of the reactor for producing plutonium up to its most radioactive stage, which North Korea promised Syria. A high-ranking Western intelligence source speaking to DEBKAfile described the evidence against Assad in US and Israeli hands as solid and much closer to a smoking gun than the West has turned up against Iran’s nuclear program. The following sequence of events unfolds from the garnered documents: Damascus and Pyongyang settled between them that the nuclear transaction would be masked as a joint venture to build a cement factory in northern Syria; meanwhile, North Korea would sell Syria cement for its development projects. According to DEBKAfile’s sources, North Korean freighters, which began putting in at Syria’s Latakia and Tartus ports in January 2007, unloaded cargoes of cement in which nuclear reactor components and materials were concealed. The North Korean traffic at these ports and the Durham wheat transaction attracted the attention of US and Israeli secret services. During the next eight months – up until the Israeli attack on Syria’s North Korean installation - wheat prices shot up on international markets. Indeed the price of Durham wheat doubled. Had this been a normal commercial transaction, Syria would have claimed additional North Korean goods in compensation. In fact, when import-export officials in Damascus, who knew nothing of the nuclear reactor tradeoff, pointed Assad’s office to the price fluctuations on the wheat market, they were told that the contracts signed by the president in person must go through without changes. When later, the Syrian wheat crop fell short of expectations, Syrian officials were again told to fill the North Korean orders in full. On Sept. 3, the North Korean “cement ship” Al Hamed docked at Tartus. The freight it unloaded was trucked directly to the “cement factory” at Al Tibnah in the Syrian Desert, east of the Euphrates River. The Israeli attack took place three days later. Last Tuesday, Oct. 23, the Syrian ambassador to Washington Imad Mustapha was invited to address the prestigious Institute on Religion and Public Policy. In answer to a question, he acknowledged, “Syria gives North Korea wheat, oil and other products.” He declined to disclose what Syria got in return. When pressed on this point, Mustapha said in exasperation: “Stuff. We get stuff.” Thursday, Oct. 25, a number of leading American media simultaneously ran satellite images of a nuclear installation standing at Al Tibnah in August 2007 and the same site in the second half of September, after it had been cleared of the debris left by the Israeli attack. This time, Damascus found nothing to say – although Syrian officials had commented on former leaks related to the episode. DEBKAfile’s Syrian sources report that this and other symptoms indicate that Assad finds himself in a tight corner. He is at a loss to explain to the Syrian public and, worse, to most of his colleagues in the political and military leadership who were kept ignorant of the nuclear transaction with North Korea, how he came to entangle the country in this ill-fated adventure. In the view of DEBKAfile’s Western intelligence source, the Syrian president’s internal and international plight is more acute than that of the Iranian regime or Saddam Hussein in the days leading up to the 2003 US invasion. No incontrovertible proof has so far been shown to demonstrate that Iran has attained the capacity to produce nuclear or radioactive weapons, any more than the Iraqi ruler was positively shown to have weapons of mass destruction. Assad’s case is more unfortunate; it is now supported by solid evidence in American and Israeli hands.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syrian VP Plans to Quit

2005-06-08

Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, a key player in the country's politics for the past half century, said he would resign and give way to the younger generation of politicians as the ruling Baath party held its 10th congress mulling serious reforms in the country. Imad Mustapha, Syrian ambassador to Washington, told CNN on Monday night that he had already learned about Khaddam's plan to step down. "This is quite natural as it indicates the party's political flexibility and its great ability to change," Mustapha told CNN. Khaddam, who served for years as foreign minister before being appointed vice president in 1985, cited personal reasons for his resignation.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syria redeploys troops from Lebanon to the Iraqi border

2004-09-21

Syrian forces positioned in Lebanon since the 1975 Lebanese civil war will commence a major redeployment toward the Syrian-Lebanese border Tuesday, and Syrian and U.S. troops will partake in joint security operations along the Syrian-Iraqi border, official sources in Damascus told United Press International Monday. "This is official," said Imad Mustapha, Syria's ambassador to Washington, speaking from Damascus. "Tuesday morning there will be a major redeployment of Syrian forces in Lebanon toward the border," he said in a telephone conversation. The ambassador also confirmed earlier reports of joint U.S.-Syrian military cooperation intended to thwart terrorist operations in Iraq. Mustapha is in Damascus for consultations before returning to the United States with Syria's Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa where they will attend the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York later this week. Sharaa is also scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Mustapha said. The Syrian diplomat told United Press International the military redeployment -- a long-standing demand by the United States -- came about as a result of "Syria having greater confidence in the situation."

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syrian forces in Lebanon will redeploy

2004-09-20

Syrian forces in Lebanon will start redeploying towards the Syrian border Tuesday, official sources in Damascus told UPI. "This is official," said Imad Mustapha, Syria's ambassador to Washington, speaking from the Syrian capital. "Tuesday morning there will be a major redeployment of Syrian forces in Lebanon," he said by phone, adding this came about as a result of "having greater confidence in the situation." "This move should please all parties," said Mustapha. Asked how many troops were involved in the redeployment and to what positions the troops would move, Mustapha said, "It is too early to tell." The Syrian official said the move is evidence Syria is trying to cooperate with the United States. Earlier it was announced Syrian and U.S. forces would partake in joint patrols along to Iraqi-Syrian border to prevent insurgents infiltrating into Iraq. Mustapha confirmed the deal, saying it came about after a visit to Damascus by American officials.

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Syria-Lebanon

Analysis: Is Syria changing?

2004-02-05

Changes are slowly happening in Syria. A group of about 700 Syrian intellectual -- writers and lawyers -- is calling on the government of President Bashar Assad to implement political reform. This is a rare event in a country where dissident voices tend to remain unheard and out of the spotlight. But a report issued Wednesday urges the government to lift the state of emergency, which its signatories say is leading to "paralysis within Syrian society." The report -- the first of its kind in Syria -- will be presented to the government next month, on the anniversary of the Syrian Baath party’s rise to power. The Syrian Organization of Human Rights also urges the government to exert more control over prisons and the treatment of prisoners, which the report says are at times subjected to torture, beatings and other human rights abuses. The report cites former prisoners by name and describes some of the maltreatment to which they were subjected. This unexpected development comes on the heels of recent peace overtures made by the Syrian president towards Israel. Indeed, change may be slowly creeping into Syria since Bashar took over the mantle of leadership following the death of his father, Hafez, in June 2000. Last month Bashar ordered the release of more than 100 political prisoners and freed more than 700 others. While these steps might not appear as much to those unfamiliar with the pace at which progress inches along in the Middle East, it is, nevertheless, seen as an important improvement by analysts more familiar with developments in the area. They cite the case of Kuwait as an example. "After the Iraqi army was driven from Kuwait in 1991, its monarch promised women rights. Consequently, in May 1999 -- the time gap tells something about the pace of change in the region -- he issued a decree giving women the right to vote and run for office in the next Kuwaiti elections," says Barry Rubin, director of Global Research in International Affairs and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. After four major wars in five decades, Syria, it appears, is now trying to move forward through peaceful means in its stagnating quarrel with Israel. "We are not going to war anymore," said Imad Mustapha, Syria’s top envoy to Washington at a recent meeting held at the Middle East Institute. "We want to regain the Golan through negotiations," he said in reference to the Israeli-occupied heights. The reasons behind the sudden change of policies -- both foreign and domestic -- could be partially explained by a number of developments in the area, not least of which is the presence of several tens of thousands of U.S. troops encamped in neighboring Iraq. That is a fact made all the more real by repeated warnings of regime changes hurled at Syria by neo-conservatives in the Bush administration. They would like to see a repeat performance of the Baghdad scenario played out in Damascus, at least as far as removing the Baath Party from power goes. They call it "de-Baathification." The passing of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Act by Congress late last year gives Washington the possibility of applying further political and economic pressures on Damascus. Another reason could simply be that Assad realizes he has no other options but to impose change, before it is imposed. "Syria has come to realize it is time to open up to the world," admitted Bouthaina Shaaban, a minister in Assad’s Cabinet, to United Press International last December. In some ways Assad finds himself today in a situation reminiscent to that of Mikhail Gorbachev at the time when the then leader of Soviet Union introduced Perestroika and Glasnost. The arms race between the United States and the USSR forced the Soviet Union to overspend money it simply did not have just to keep pace with NATO and Western military technologies and spending. The result, as we know, bankrupted the Soviet Union, forced the collapse of communism and led to the breakup of the USSR. Similarly, Syria today finds that its economy cannot keep pace and that change is badly needed. The demise of the Soviet Union, once Syria’s chief supporter and its main arms supplier, has slowed Syria’s ability to acquire modern military equipment. "Nevertheless, its military remains one of the largest and most capable in the region," according to the U.S. Department of State. Iraq used to have the Fourth Largest Army in the World™. It was the most capable in the region, too, fighting Iran to a standstill at the cost of hundreds of thousands of casualties... But maintaining its current military status is forcing a heavy burden on the predominantly statist economy, which has been growing, on average, more slowly than its 2.4 percent annual population growth rate, causing a persistent decline in per capita GDP. Recent legislation legalized private banking and in 2003 the government licensed three private banks to operate in Syria, although U.S. officials believe a private banking sector will take years and further government cooperation to develop. At Washington’s behest, both Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with Israel, leaving Syria as the sole Arab country still in a state of war with Israel, a difficult and taxing reality on the country. Washington should now encourage Damascus to move forward on the road to openness and democratic change, even if these changes are at their own pace.

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Syria-Lebanon

Saudi FM makes unexpected visit to Syria

2003-04-14

EFL Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal discussed Iraqi security and sovereignty Monday with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during an impromptu visit to Damascus, the official SANA news agency said. Their talks focused on "efforts by Iraq's neighbors to restore security and stability and to preserve the country's territorial integrity" SANA said. Preserving their jobs and necks. Prince Faisal's unexpected visit came after the United States stepped up criticism of Syria, accusing Damascus of possessing weapons of mass destruction and allowing senior Iraqi leaders to escape through its territory. Syrian nationals also battled US troops in Baghdad after entering Iraq by the busload, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld charged Sunday. Lost that road game Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa dismissed the allegations of Syrian support for Saddam Hussein's regime as groundless, the official Syrian daily Tishrin said Monday. "Mussa judged yesterday as groundless the accusations of certain American leaders against Syria," the newspaper said. "The United States and major powers should use their military force on behalf of the Palestinian cause and end the Israeli occupation of Arab lands," it quoted Mussa as saying. That's some good shit he's smoking. On Sunday, US President George W. Bush said Syria has chemical weapons, and warned Damascus it must cooperate with Washington as the United States pursues its overthrow of Saddam Hussein. "There is a campaign of false information and disinformation against Syria which began even before the war", the embassy's deputy ambassador Imad Mustapha told NBC television. "Lies, all lies!"

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