The US has received "credible information" that Syrian
operatives in Lebanon are planning the assassinations of senior Lebanese
political leaders and that Syrian military intelligence forces are
returning to Lebanon to create "an environment of
intimidation", according to a senior Bush administration official,
Scott McClellan. Syria has said that all of its military and
intelligence officials left Lebanon by April 26. But on Jun 10, Scott
McClellan, the White House spokesman, disputed that assertion. "We
are deeply concerned about Syria's interference and intimidation
inside Lebanon", McClellan said. "We have called on the United
Nations to send verification teams back to Lebanon". McClellan
declined to discuss details of Syria's continued involvement in
Lebanon, saying he would not comment on "intelligence
matters". But on Jun 9 the senior Bush administration official,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the information had come
from "a variety of Lebanese sources" and that "we assess
it as credible". The information, he said, was gathered after the
assassinations of former PM Rafik Hariri of Lebanon in February, and of
Samir Kassir, a well-known journalist, on June 2. Both were outspoken
critics of Syrian domination of Lebanese politics, and Kassir had blamed
Syria for the assassination of Hariri. UN Sec Gen Kofi Annan, has said
he is considering sending a UN team back to Lebanon to check whether
Syrian intelligence officials are still operating there. After the
Hariri assassination, Syria came under renewed pressure to remove the
14,000 troops stationed in Lebanon at the time, and it has said that it
completed the job. A verification team sent by the UN Security Council,
which had demanded the troops' removal, could not confirm that all
military intelligence operatives had left. The senior Bush
administration official said the timing of the Syrian involvement was
especially important in light of a four-part parliamentary election
being held last month and this month. "This is a moment when many
politicians are facing overt Syrian intimidation in the middle of the
election period", he said. "When Lebanese sources tell us that
they are hearing that the Kassir killing will be followed by others, we
take it seriously". The administration official volunteered the
information about what he said was a "Syrian hit list" on the
condition that he not be identified by name or agency. A spokesman for
the official, when asked why the official would not make the assertions
more openly, said it was because of the diplomatic sensitivities
involved and the usual reluctance to discuss intelligence matters
openly. It was clear that the official's statements, which were
offered to reporters from at least two news organisations, were a
deliberate signal of the Bush administration's continuing
displeasure over the Syrian government's role in Lebanon. The
official said that information about the threat had been disseminated to
governments in the Middle East and Europe and that "we thought it
would be useful to make this public as a deterrent to the Syrians".
But intelligence officials said they could not immediately substantiate the reliability of the information cited by the administration official.
A US State Department official said that word of a "hit list"
had been "circulating among the Lebanese", but that no one in
the administration had actually seen such a list and that its existence
could not be independently verified. Since the Hariri assassination,
which was widely viewed as having been carried out by Syria or its
supporters, Lebanese politicians opposed to Syria's military
presence over many decades and its influence generally have been on
edge. Gen Michel Aoun, a Christian leader who recently returned to
Lebanon after 15 years in exile, has been giving speeches from behind a
bulletproof shield. Syria had stationed troops in Lebanon since a civil
war began in the 1970s, ostensibly to stabilise the country.