Syria Is Stuck Between A UN Trap And A Deal With USA Over Iran, Hizbullah & Iraq.

*** Assad Strategy Is To Control Lebanon And Then Negotiate With Baker's Group; But If He Fails To Assume This Control By Peaceful Means, Will He Stage A Civil War Among The Lebanese Parties?

*** Hizbullah Says It Is Not Only To Control The Beirut Govt. But Also Wants The Presidency & An End To The Ta'if Agreement

*** Jumblatt Says The Difference Between Hafez And Bashar Al-Assad  Is That The Former Was More Shrewd And Had Some Credibility Whereas The Latter Has None

*** The Druze Boss Sees No Hope From A Regime Trying To Survive By Eliminating Its Rivals & Foes In About The Same Way: Killing Them

BEIRUT - The Ba'thist dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad in Syria has been offered an opportunity of a deal with the US over Iran, Iran's Shi'ite offshoot in Lebanon called Hizbullah and Iraq. At the same time, however, it is stuck with a UN probe into the murder of prominent Lebanese politicians including former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Assad's other option is to open the Golan front for a war with Israel which could eventually suck in Iran and the US in a confrontation over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

The US needs the co-operation of Syria in Iraq and Lebanon more than it needs the Ba'thist dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad to survive in Damascus. Assad, an Alawite turned Sunni in order to be president of Syria, needs to survive more than the US needs anything of his regime. There is a big difference between the two.

While logically it is assumed that, for Assad to survive, he needs to be immune from a UN tribunal trying the murder of important Lebanese politicians. But in Assad's logic such a tribunal should not exist; and even if it is formed, it must be undermined.

To undermine this court's process, Assad has been trying to stage a coup d'etat in Beirut. So far, he has failed and the Beirut government on Nov. 13 approved a UN draft for the tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of Hariri, who was killed in a massive bomb blast along with 22 others on Feb. 14, 2005. The UN investigation into his assassination has implicated senior Syrian and Lebanese security chiefs, although Damascus has denied any involvement.

It is rumoured that President Assad himself ordered the Hariri murder as well as the assassination of other Lebanese politicians and journalists. Among those in Syria said to be implicated in the murders include Gen. Assef Shawkat, the commander of military intelligence who is Assad's brother-in-law. The heads of four security institutions in Lebanon, including Gen. Jamil al-Sayyed, are already held in a Lebanese jail as prime suspects. They also include Gen. Mustapha Hamdan, commander of the Presidential Guard, and Internal Security chief Gen. Ali al-Hajj.

A UN probe commission is to issue a final report on the Hariri killing and its links with other murders by Dec. 15. How this process will affect the Assad regime remains to be seen. Whether Syria can do anything to help the US in Iraq is another matter; this regime will collapse before it does really do anything to help in Iraq (see rim5-IraqGovtWarNov20-06).

Syria under Assad has a strategic alliance with Iran, an alliance which will end when his regime collapses. Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, in a talk with Future TV on Nov. 15, described Assad as "the angel of death", saying the Ba'thist dictator was not only devoid of any credibility, but he was possessed by "blind hatred... He hates anyone who does not or cannot follow his orders".

Assad's regime is said to be the most important link between al-Qaeda and other Neo-Salafi militants sworn to defeat the US - on the one hand - and between the Shi'ite theocracy of Iran and its Hizbullah offshoots in Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. It is Assad's regime which has brought al-Qaeda to Lebanon. He brought Somali Neo-Salafis to Lebanon to fight alongside Hizbullah against Israel (see overleaf).

It is also through Assad's regime that Iran maintains links with al-Qaeda. This is despite the fact that ideologically al-Qaeda is at war with the Shi'ite theocracy of Iran in general and Ja'fari Shi'ism in particular. How Assad's regime has managed such an impressive capability is what puzzles the royal family of Saudi Arabia which is fighting a low-intensity war with the Neo-Salafis - themselves being offshoots of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi order.

The FT on Nov. 16 quoted Sa'd Hariri, the son of the mudered former Lebanese PM as expressing unease about calls in the US and Britain for dialogue with Iran and Syria to tackle the problems of the Middle East. The young Hariri, leader of Lebanon's anti-Syria parliamentary majority, said "the Syrians will use it to kill more Lebanese". Most Lebanese blame Assad for Hariri's murder, though Assad denies all responsibility.

Hariri issued a stark warning against engaging with the government in Damascus, saying: "The west and the Arab world have to understand that this regime has nothing to give to the world except chaos, terrorism and assassinations". He spoke as his country faced a worsening political clash between his camp and pro-Syria parties, led by Hizbullah. Hizbullah and its allies pulled out of the government of Fou'ad Siniora after political negotiations collapsed on Nov. 11. Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah wants more of a say for himself and his allies in the wake of what Hizbullah calls a "divine victory" over Israel in the 34-day war which ended on Aug. 14.

Six pro-Syria ministers resigned shortly before the cabinet voted on Nov. 13 to approve a UN draft for an international tribunal to try those accused of the Hariri assassination. The young Hariri insisted that the pro-Syria Shi'ite movements Hizbullah and Amal were intent on blocking the tribunal and that he was determined to see through its establishment to try his father's killers, saying: "After that we can talk about everything".

Hariri said he was eager to engage the parties in political talks, adding: "There is a middle way if they want a middle way but if it is about crippling the international tribunal, there is no middle way". Hizbullah and Amal denied their actions were intended to thwart the establishment of an international tribunal. But after the cabinet's approval of the tribunal, Nasrallah said the government no longer had any credibility and must fall, according to as-Safir daily. Speaking at a rally in Hizbullah's stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut that were heavily damaged by Israeli bombardments, he vowed: "a clean-handed government will come and rebuild" the country.

Hizbullah has said it will stage street protests to back up its political demands but it has not yet announced a date for the start of such demonstrations. Explaining his concerns regarding dialogue with Syria and Iran, Hariri said: "We have had our history with the US and Great Britain giving up Lebanon to the Syrian regime". He was referring to 1990, when the US gave Syria a free hand in Lebanon in exchange for that country's participation in the coalition against Saddam Hussein. He accused Syria and Iran of trying to take over Lebanon and denied that his own camp was serving US interests, saying: "We don't represent American interests, we represent the Lebanese interest".

In his talk on Future TV on Nov. 15, Jumblatt said all that Assad's regime and Iran's theocracy wanted was have direct negotiations with the US. But he said that there was no hope of the Syrian regime being able to do anything positive towards the US, whether in Iraq or in Lebanon. The US has made it known that it is hoping the Syrian regime would help in disarming Hizbullah in Lebanon; but, in reality, Syria wants to control Lebanon through Hizbullah, with Assad believing his regime can only survive by having such control.

More than 700 Neo-Salafi militants from Somalia travelled to Lebanon in July to fight along-side Hizbullah in its war against Israel, a UN report says. The militia in Lebanon returned the favour by providing training and - through its patrons Iran and Syria - weapons to the Neo-Salafi alliance struggling for control of Somalia, the study adds. The report, which was disclosed on Nov. 13 by Reuters, appears to be the first indication that foreign fighters assisted Hizbullah during the 34-day conflict, when Israel maintained a tight blockade on Lebanon. The report says Iran sought to trade arms for uranium from Somalia to further its nuclear ambitions, though it does not say whether Iran succeeded.

The 86-page report was issued by four experts monitoring violations of a 1992 UN arms embargo on Somalia, which was put in place after the country lapsed into civil war and remains in effect. The report was to be discussed on Nov. 17 at the UN Security Council (UNSC). The panel does not say how the information was obtained. But the members had access to information from the intelligence agencies of the UNSC's 15 current members, including Britain, France, China, Russia and the US, a UN official said.

Hizbullah's effectiveness is widely attributed to its followers' deep familiarity with the region. But the Somali involvement was more symbolic than effective help to Hizbullah as the Neo-Salafi fighters' presence was to boost increase Somalia-Iranian trade in uranium and arms. Somalia is particularly interested in Iranian-produced missiles used by Hizbullah against Israel. The Somalis judge these to be effective in a future war with Ethiopia.

While the sources of the information remain unclear, the report is dense with details about arms shipments to the groups vying for power in Somalia. It states that in mid-July, Aden Hashi Farah, a leader of the Somali Neo-Salafi alliance, personally selected about 720 experienced fighters to travel to Lebanon and fight alongside Hizbullah. At least 100 Somalis had returned by early September - with five Hizbullah members - while others stayed on in Lebanon for advanced military training, the report says. It is not clear how many may have been killed, though the report says some were wounded and later treated after their return to Somalia. The fighters were paid a minimum of $2,000 for their service, the report says, and as much as $30,000 was to be given to the families of those killed, with money donated by "a number of supporting countries".

In addition to training some Somali militants, Hizbullah "arranged for additional support to be given" by Iran and Syria, including weapons, the report found. On July 27, 200 Somali fighters travelled to Syria to be trained in guerrilla warfare, the report says. It also indicates that Iran appears to have sought help in its quest for uranium in Dusa Mareb, the hometown of Shaikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the Neo-salafi alliance in Somalia, which is known as the Council of Islamic Courts. "At the time of the writing of this report, there were two Iranians in Dusa Mareb engaged on matters linked to the exploration of uranium in exchange for arms" for the Council of Islamic Courts, says the report, which is dated Oct. 16. Those claims, if proved, could worsen global tensions over Iran's nuclear work. Iran ignored an Aug. 31 deadline to suspend uranium enrichment. The US is leading UN efforts to impose sanctions.

The UN report is focused mostly on the increasingly volatile situation in Somalia, where Neo-Salafi Islamists took control of the capital, Mogadishu, in June from warlords backed by the US. Not only has the volume of arms flowing into Somalia grown, the report says, but more sophisticated weapons like surface-to-air missiles are being brought in. The conflict could grow into a regional war, with Somalia's neighbors, Ethiopia and Eritrea, backing opposing sides. The report recommends that the UNSC blockade Somalia.

Internet Jihadis May Eclipse Bin Laden: As Neo-Salafi Islam spreads globally through online fora and chat rooms, a group of obscure Arab religious thinkers may come to exert more influence over the jihadi movement than Osama bin Laden and other well-known leaders of al-Qaeda, a research group at the US Military Academy has concluded. In a study billed as the "first systematic mapping" of an ideology sometimes called jihadism, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has found that bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, have had a relatively minor influence on the movement's intellectual foundation.

Among the network's ideologists, they have come to be seen more as propagandists than strategic thinkers. And while the two Qaeda leaders have released a flurry of video and audio messages to their followers over the past year, the study found that the scholarly work of a group of Saudi and Jordanian clerics - most notably Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a Jordanian - seems more likely to influence the next generation of militants. As a result, the authors found, the death or capture of bin Laden and Zawahiri would do little to slow the spread of jihadi ideology. "It would be a blow in terms of the emotional impact, but in terms of the larger movement that the foot soldiers are being recruited into, it wouldn't put much of a dent into it at all". said William McCants, the chief author of the new report, "The Militant Ideology Atlas".

The 382-page report, a kind of Who's Who of the global Neo-Salafi movement, examines the most influential and widely read texts among the thousands of tracts in Qaeda's online library, known as the Tawhed. With the dismantling of the Qaeda hierarchy that existed on Sept. 11, 2001, and the diffusion of the jihadi movement into smaller, more localised cells, the Tawhed has gained new significance in helping to shape Neo-Salafi thought.

US officials say they fear the next generation of terrorist attacks could be carried out not by militants trained in Qaeda camps but by fighters influenced by radical texts posted online. A National Intelligence Estimate on global terrorism completed this year concluded: "The radicalization process is occurring more quickly, more widely and more anonymously in the Internet age, raising the likelihood of surprise attacks by unknown groups whose members and supporters may be difficult to pinpoint".

Although located at West Point, the Combating Terrorism Center is an independent research group financed by private sources and the government. The report found that radical Islam, called Neo-Salafism, is so deeply embedded in the Arab world that Salafis, not all of whom espouse violence, now constitute a "majority or significant portion" of the Muslim population in the Middle East and North Africa. Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center, said it was far too early to presume that bin Laden and Zawahiri had lost all influence over a movement they helped build. At the same time, he said, the two men have recently been issuing what amount to policy statements that are unlikely to inspire legions of new followers.