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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (10930)	12/31/2005 3:52:03 PM
From: rrufff	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

Syrian ex-VP: Assad threatened Lebanese premier Saturday, December 31, 2005; Posted: 10:40 a.m. EST (15:40 GMT) Former Syrian VP Abdul-Halim Khaddam says Syria threatened Hariri prior to his assassination. BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Former Syrian Vice President Abdul-Halim Khaddam, a one-time stalwart of the ruling Baath Party, said on Friday that former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri was threatened by Syria months before he was assassinated. Khaddam made the claim as he declared a formal break with President Bashar Assad in a television interview from Paris, citing corruption within the regime and its failure to reform. "Hariri was subjected to many threats from Syria," Khaddam said in the interview with Al-Arabiya, the pan-Arab satellite broadcaster, his first since he left Syria several months ago. "Dangerous things were said." He added that Hariri was once summoned to Damascus, the Syrian capital, "and spoken to in extremely harsh words by President Bashar Assad." A U.N. probe into Hariri's killing has implicated Syria, but Damascus has denied the allegations. (Read about the probe pointing to top officials) Khaddam became a Syrian vice president in 1984 and resigned in June. He was the nominal leader in Syria for a short period after Assad's father, Hafez Assad, died in June 2000. In the interview, Khaddam was bitterly critical of the current Assad government, saying the ruling Baath Party and other popular organizations had been reduced to vindicating "decisions made by the president." He claimed to have left his homeland on good terms with Assad. "There are differences in opinions, but there was mutual respect," he said, adding that his family was with him in Paris where he was writing a memoir. He denied that he had been threatened and said he would return to Syria. Nevertheless, he charged, the Syrian leadership had made many mistakes. He quoted the Syrian president as telling Hariri, months before he was killed, that he would not allow him to bring a new president to Lebanon. "I will not allow that. I will crush whoever attempts to overturn our decision," he recalled Assad telling Hariri. Syria had dictated an extension of the presidential term of pro-Syrian Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, which Hariri opposed. The move provoked a political crisis in Syria's tiny Mediterranean neighbor. After the warning from Assad, Hariri left with "high blood pressure and his nose bleeding," Khaddam said. Khaddam, however, said he was not accusing Syria of complicity in Hariri's February 14 assassination in a massive truck bombing that killed 20 others on a Beirut street. He said uncovering the guilty parties was a matter for the U.N. commission investigating the murder. Khaddam's comments reflected serious cracks within the Damascus regime. His claim was in direct contradiction to those made by Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa, who said at a Wednesday news conference that Hariri lied when he told Lebanese politicians he had been threatened by Assad during a meeting on August 26, 2004. Several anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians told the U.N. commission they had been told Assad threatened to "break Lebanon" over Hariri's head if he did not support Damascus' decision to extend the Lahoud presidency. Khaddam also launched a scathing attack against Syria's intelligence chief in Lebanon, Brig. Gen. Rustom Ghazale, whom he described as a corrupt officer who insulted Lebanese politicians, including Hariri, on a number of occasions. "Rustom Ghazale acted as if he's the absolute ruler of Lebanon," he said. Under intense international pressure and after massive anti-Syrian demonstrations in Damascus, Syria pulled its troops out of Syria this summer after entering the country in 1976 as a stabilizing force early in the country's civil war. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed