Anti-Alawite Leaflets Distributed: The President's Family in the Line of Fire

As-Seyassah claims Maher Assad, the President's brother who leads the Presidential Guard, is top on Mehlis' list for questioning. It is not clear whether Bashar will allow him to be questioned. The president's legal council, Mr. Daoudi, has claimed that this would undermine the sovereignty of the presidency, but they are discussing it.

An-Nahar writes that Asef Shawkat, the president's brother-in-law, and his wife and children have flown to France.

Assad's Brother-in-Law and Overall Intelligence Chief may be in Paris

Syria's overall intelligence chief Gen. Assef Shawkat may be in Paris while U.N. chief investigator Detlev Mehlis is preparing his probe in Syria over Rafik Hariri's assassination, An Nahar reported Wednesday.
Shawkat, who is President Assad's brother-in-law, may have arrived in the French capital Tuesday night along with his wife Boushra and their children, An Nahar said.

There were media reports that Shawkat is among the Syrian security officials Mehlis wanted to interrogate during his second trip to Damascus late next week. But this report could not be officially or independently verified.

Al-Seyassah reported that its sources had said a conflict is ongoing between Assad and his brother Maher, with Shawkat. Al-Seyassah said that Shawkat has addressed letters to Paris and Washington revealing "the truth" behind the assassination of Hariri, in return for guarantees of holding a position in the new Syrian regime.

All of this seems to be wild speculation. al-Seyassah in particular has no history of fact-checking and often repeats gossip, which we later find out to be untrue. So reader be ware.

The Lebanese paper, al-Balad writes that Junblat has been told in Paris that the French government is adamant about applying all UN resolutions to Lebanon, which means Hizbullah must disarm. The French are also claiming that the Mehlis investigation must be pursued to its just conclusion without regard to politics, which means there will be no protection for the Asad family.

An-Nahar writes that the: U.S. Cracks the Whip, Accusing Syria of Involvement in Hariri's Assassination.

The United Sates is cracking the whip hard on Syria with President Bush threatening it with tighter sanctions and his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying the Assad regime may not be innocent of involvement in ex-Premier Hariri's assassination.

"The (Syrian) government is going to become more and more isolated as a result of two things; one, not being cooperative with the Iraqi government in terms of securing Iraq and, two, not being fully transparent about what they did in Lebanon," Bush told reporters following a meeting at the White House with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Bush did not specify what Syrian actions in Lebanon he was referring to but Damascus and its allies in the then-Lebanese government have been widely blamed for Hariri's murder in Beirut. His words came a day after his ambassador to Iraq said military action against Syria was an option on the table.

Bush said he would discuss getting Syria to "change their behavior, particularly as it regards to democracy and trying to prevent democracies from emerging" with U.S. allies at this week's summit in New York.

"This is a subject of conversation, of course, I'll have with allies in places like New York and on the other times I communicate with our allies," he said.

Rice aired out her suspicions about Syria's involvement in the Hariri murder in an interview with the editorial board of the CBS.

"Syrian security officials got entangled in the murder of Prime Minister Hariri," she said, wondering how President Assad would explain Syria's unawareness of the occurrence of such a massive assassination operation.

"The Syrians need to account for how it is that Lebanese -- high-ranking Lebanese security officials with well known ties and links to Syrian security officials got entangled in the murder of Prime Minister Hariri."

She was referring to Gen. Jamil Sayyed of the Surete Generale, Gen. Mustafa Hamdan of the Presidential Guard Brigade, Gen. Raymond Azar of the army's intelligence service and Gen. Ali Hajj who headed the overall internal security forces when Hariri was murdered. All four are under arrest at the behest of U.N. chief investigator Detlev Mehlis.

Rice raised doubt about Syria's complete evacuation of Lebanon. "We know their military forces are out of Lebanon. A lot of people suspect that they maintain intelligence presence there. And we need to know that Syria is carrying through on its obligations to get out of there and stay out of there. And it shouldn't be that an external power somehow was involved in the assassination of the prime minister of another country -- of the former prime minister, then a candidate for prime minister. So I think this whole Mehlis investigation is extremely important, extremely important."

Rice charged that Syria was still out to strangle Lebanon economically.

She was asked: Do you think that the Syrian government falls apart if the security system falls apart and what are the consequences?

"I don't know because, you know, it is a very opaque system in Syria. I do know that Syria should be fully and completely out of Lebanon, that they ought to recognize Lebanon as an independent state. For instance, it would be very good if they actually had an embassy and an ambassador in Lebanon, which would be a signal that they don't think of Lebanon as some kind of Syrian outpost."

Rice said neither the U.S. nor the U.N. were satisfied with Syria's cooperation with the Mehlis probe.

"We have not been and the U.N. had not been satisfied. We'll see. They've said now they're going to offer cooperation. I don't know what Mehlis has been able to get."

Syria Hits Back at U.S., Asserting it is Out of Lebanon Altogether

Syria has rejected a spiraling U.S. campaign against the Assad regime, asserting it was properly guarding its border with Iraq against terrorist infiltrations and has gotten out from Lebanon altogether. Syria recalled that it had signed an agreement with the Iraqi and U.S. governments for joint patrols along the border and taken other steps to prevent infiltrations.

Nizar Nayouf's new newsletter "al-Haqiqa," which is sent out from France, claims that Syria's president is trying to get a deal like Qadhafi's.

الأسد يسعى إلى " لوكربي سورية " تساويه بالقذافي !

باريس ، خاص بـ " الحقيقة " : أفادت معلومات متداولة في أروقة الديبلوماسية الفرنسية بأن الرئيس بشار الأسد يسعى جاهدا إلى إبرام " اتفاق جنتلمان " مع العواصم الغربية المعنية مياشرة بقضية التحقيق في اغتيال الحريري . وطبقا لهذه المعلومات فإن الأسد قبل مبادرة سعودية ـ مصرية تقوم على عدة نقاط مقابل استثنائه وشقيقه ماهر من تحقيقات ميليس والحصول على تعهد من هذه العواصم بعدم المساس بـ " مؤسسة الرئاسة وما يتبع لها " . وهو ما يعني ضمنا الحرس الجمهوري . وعلم أن هذه النقاط تشمل :
ـ استعداده لإطلاق سراح جميع المعتقلين السياسيين وإحداث تحولات ديمقراطية سريعة خلال ستة أشهر ؛
ـ مساهمة فعالة في عملية التحقيق الدولية الجارية بشأن جريمة اغتيال الحريري ، مع استعداد لتسليم جميع المشتبه بهم إلى أي محكمة تكلف بالقضية ؛
ـ مساهمة فعالة في مكافحة الإرهاب في العراق ؛
ـ وضع سلاح حزب الله الثقيل في مستودعات خاصة بالجيش اللبناني ؛
ـ حظر مطلق على نشاط المنظمات الفلسطينية المتواجدة في دمشق .
وأشارت هذه المعلومات إلى أن الرئيس السوري ، الذي سلم فعلا هذه المقترحات إلى كل من العربية السعودية ومصر خلال الساعات القليلة الماضية ، طالب بمساواته بالقذافي ، وتساءل عن المبررات التي تجعل واشنطن وباريس تعاملانه بأقل مما عاملتا به " إرهابيا دوليا لم يتورع عن قتل المدنيين في السماء " ، في إشارة إلى تفجير الطائرة الأميركية فوق بلدة لوكربي . وأضافت هذه المعلومات أن " ردود الفعل الأميركية على مقترحات الأسد أظهرت بعض الليونة والتراخي ، فيما أصر الرئيس شيراك على المضي في التحقيق حتى نهاياته القصوى مهما كان مستوى الشخصيات التي قد يطالها " . وختمت هذه المصادر بالتأكيد على أن " مبعوثا مصريا رفيع المستوى ، وربما سعوديا أيضا ، سيصل إلى دمشق خلال الساعات القليلة القادمة لبحث هذه المقترحات وتطويرها " .

Anti-Alawite leaflets:
"al-Haqiqa" also claims that leaflets have recently been distributed in neighborhoods throughout Syria's major cities, which state that منشورات مجهولة المصدر تنذر " العلويين الكفار " بدنو ساعة الحساب !

They warn the "Alawite unbelievers" that "their judgment day is imminent." According to "al-Haqiqa," the authors of this report are not a small handful of activists, but a large network, because they were distributed on the same day in Damascus, Banyas, Tartous, Lattakia, Homs, etc. This would be the first time such leaflets have been widely distributed in over two decades.