Syrian Brig. Gen. Mohammed Suleiman, a senior intelligence officer in the Assad regime, was assassinated by a seaborne sniper as he relaxed at his seaside villa in Tartous along the Syrian coast. It is a strange and mysterious development in a long line of them involving such murders in both Syria and Lebanon over the past few years.
Suleiman was Syria’s main liaison with Hezbollah and responsible for transferring the most sophisticated rocket weaponry from and through Syria to Hezbollah. Haaretz reports this interesting background information:
Israel yesterday declined to either confirm or deny any connection with Suleiman’s assassination.
This is the second time in the last two weeks that someone involved in arms smuggling to Hezbollah has been killed. Last week, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that an Iranian Revolutionary Guard convoy that was ferrying arms to Hezbollah suffered an unexplained explosion that killed 15 people. Both Iran and Israel declined to comment on that incident.
…Suleiman was thought to be in charge of overseeing both Iranian arms transfers to Hezbollah via Syria and shipments from Syria’s own arms industry. He focused in particular on supplies of long-range rockets, including 220-millimeter rockets with a 70-kilometer range like the one that struck a Haifa railway garage during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, killing eight people.
The Washington Post quotes this official Israeli response to the news:
Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said, “The Israeli government has neither any direct knowledge nor any comment on this incident.”
Ynetnews reports that the Syrian opposition, a source known for its unreliability, claims the killing was ordered by Assad himself so that Suleiman would not be able to testify against him in the Hariri investigation. I find this explanation suspect given peace overtures happening between Israel and Syria. The pressures of such an investigation and likelihood of them damaging Assad seem to have receded somewhat. Besides, if Assad wanted to kill him why would he need to create an elaborate plot involving a seaborne yacht and sniper?
AsiaNews reports a somewhat more credible motivation if Assad was involved:
There are different conjectures over the assassination of Suleiman, which could be seen in the context of the divisions within Syria created by the thaw that Assad seems to want to foster with Israel and the United States, with the consequent distancing from Hezbollah and Iran.
Lebanese enemies of Hezbollah and the Syrians would have a motive to kill Suleiman, but it seems unlikely they would have the wherewithal to devise an elaborate seaborne plot like the one that was used in this killing.
It seems much more likely that Israel would be the culprit, though at this point this is speculation. If Israel is involved I find its behavior strange. There are serious talks happening between Israel and Syria under Turkish auspices. If such talks were successful, Syria would eventually renounce its arming of Hezbollah. So why would Israel take a chance at jeopardizing the talks by killing a senior Assad confidant?
One answer might be that Israel is passing a message both to Hezbollah and Syria, telling Assad that they are deeply serious about eliminating Syrian support for Hezbollah; and telling the latter that the long arm of Israeli spookdom will reach out and pick them off no matter where they are (which would also explain Israel’s rumored involvement in the assassination of Imad Mougniyeh, Hezbollah’s number 2 commander).
Despite its interest in negotiating peace with Syria (and if Israeli intelligence performed the hit) it apparently wasn’t restrained from assassinating Mugniyah; nor did Israel desist from bombing an alleged Syrian nuclear facility some months ago. Israel, it would seem, is playing a calibrated game of both entertaining peace overtures involving Syria and attacking the regime when it suits Israel’s interests to do so. This isn’t a path that most other governments might follow in similar circumstances. But then again, Israel has always followed its own idiosyncratic path in these matters, often to its long-term detriment.
This guy was so mysterious that I haven’t even been able to find a picture of him. If anyone sees one please let me know.
I think Ynet had a pic up earlier, but they seem to have taken it down. It was some sort of formal dinner and his head was circled in red but you could not really make him out from anybody else, especially at the distance and the awkward angle. I will see if I can find it for you, but it aint much.
@david:
Yes, I knew I’d seen the image during my web rambles. But then it disappeared & I couldn’t remember where I’d originally seen it. The trouble w. the Israeli online pubs is that they don’t use images large enough to tell you anything.
http://www.keshet-tv.com/VideoPage.aspx?MediaID=42160&CatID=5152&CurrentCatID=5157
He has been a very wanted man for a long time, far longer than the wars with Hezbollah.. He is one of the most wanted cold blooded murderers who it was rumored even underwent plastic surgery to avoid detection. If Israel had a chance to help his demise finally, I am sure they would and should take it regardless of what the present public posturing of Syria is or if it perhaps irks the likes of “thinkers” like yourself.
So your feeling is that if in fact Syria was secretly and covertly building a nuke facility that Israel didn’t do itself and the Middle East as a whole a favor by preventing Syria by potentially becoming a nucleur nation and perhaps this is “more evidence” of not Syrian double speak but Israeli “erratic” behavior.
Perhaps Israeli intelligence has a lot more information than you do? just perhaps…
@Benjamin Bratt: I wouldn’t expect the pro-Israel wingnut brigade to have thought this through but, given Gen Bratt’s excellent idea that Israel should begin killing the senior military officers of foreign nations, did it ever occur to him that this would create open season on IDF officers esp. when they are outside the protection of Israel? So I expect when this happens that the good General won’t be shrieking with rage at the murderous Arab demons who kill our boys with impunity, etc., etc.
Oh, & another thing the wingnut brigade is weak on is evidence. Proof of the alleged crimes of Suleiman? You won’t find any coming fr. the likes of Bratt. He’s not strong on evidence. Oh he’s strong on allegations esp. when they concern Israel’s enemies. But no one bothered to explain to him the diff. bet. an allegation & a proven allegation. I’m open to evidence. It’s just you haven’t provided any.
Or perhaps Israeli intelligence is made up of nincompoops like you.
And again, if you’re in favor of Israel knocking out alleged Arab nuclear facilities, I would assume you’d have no problem with any Arab country dropping a bomb on Dimona? Or is there something I’m missing about the equivalence of the 2 scenarios other than Israel is a paragon of good & the Arabs exemplars of evil?
With such a strong argument one has to wonder why you are already resorting to insults, labeling and names?
So you consider Imad Mougniyeh a military commander as perhaps Osama Ben Laden is as well. You see I consider him to be a most wanted cold-blooded cowardly murderer. You know Al Jazeera held a party for Sami Kuntar after his release (they’ve since tried to mitigate the embarrassment of this) and I’m sure he’s now afforded military commander status with Hezbollah as well – but he is still nothing more than a cold-blooded cowardly and un-repentant child murderer… perhaps you don’t think so.
Mougniyeh’s demise was well warranted by him. Anyone with that much blood on his hands deserves it in kind or a life in prison. Further, Hezbollah did actually kidnap 2 boys inside Israel and mutilated their bodies and then won the release of a child murderer for the return of just their bodies. I assume you are not hinting that they are the equivalent of Sami Kuntar? Further the murderers of Zeevi were rumored to be released as well. So there is 2 examples of Hezbollah kidnapping and murdering in exchange for a child murderer, their prized “military commander”.
Well I lost my card to the brigade and I can’t speak for “the likes” of me. But I can say that if anyone were to throw 1/10th the bile and slanderous generalizations at you that you regularly throw you would surely not be able to take what you dish out. Which is why it is probably preferable for you to “argue” in here than in real public forum.
This coming from the man who put up a post postulating that Israel killed Suleiman without a shred of evidence.
Well the first few insults I was able to handle but being called a “nincompoop” well that’s almost too much to handle from such an obviously esteemed commenter.
Sure I do trust Israel more than Syria is a corrupt Dictatorship that is abusing Lebanon in order to prop up said Dictatorship. If the Arab world were a lot more powerful than Israel it wouldn’t exist.
@Benjamin Bratt: The blog post was not about Mugniyeh (except in passing). It was about Syrian Brig. Gen. Mohammed Suleiman. If you weren’t referring to him it would’ve been an excellent idea to tell us who specifically you WERE referring to.
Pray, do tell us the source that verifies yr preposterous claim that the bodies of Regev & Goldwasser were mutilated. I would so much like to know where you ferret out such outstanding information. I didn’t approve of the Hezbollah raid into Israel. But those soldiers were killed during battle & their bodies NOT mutilated.
I have a rule that I do not allow such unsupported charges to be published at this blog. In future, if you make such charges w/o credible evidence, you will jeopardize yr right to participate here.
I’ve got news for you–if this weren’t a “public forum” you wouldn’t be here. A blog is a public forum unless participation is restricted & anyone can contribute to these threads as long as they obey the comment rules.
I write for The Guardian and Huffington Post as well. As far I can tell they’re public forums as well. There goes yr theory I guess.
Unlike you I actually conceded that it was a conjecture & not based on solid evidence. I never saw you say that about any of yr claims.
The Arab world believes precisely the converse & w. demagogues like you around they have every right to do so. In fact, one of the reason so many Arab countries want nuclear weapons is that they believe that Israel at some pt. might have no compunction about blowing them off the face of the map. If you believe what you do about Arabs I guess they have the right to believe the opposite. Though I believe neither of you.
It was my first time to find this site,
I like the positive title: Make the world a better place!
The content and tone in the first text and comments was interesting and attractive, but unfortunately the conversation turns into something I don’t even want to read. The internet is full of similar mud-throwing and I am deeply disappointed to find the same on such a beatiful site.
Salaam – Shalom from The Holy land
@Fredrik: Unfortunately, there is much that is ugly about the I-P conflict & the conversation often turns contentious. To find truth & beauty in the world you often have to wade through a lot of mud.