Report: Sniper kills Assad's Hezbollah liaison officer

No doubt the assassination will be blamed on the nefarious forces of International Zionism. It is unlikely, however, that Israel had a hand in this. Plenty of Lebanese would be willing to do the job.  

Last update - 12:00 03/08/2008       

Report: Sniper kills Assad's Hezbollah liaison
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correpsondent, and Haaretz Service

Various reports in the Arab press on Sunday quoted senior sources in Damascus as saying that Syrian President Bashar Assad's liaison officer with the Hezbollah guerilla group was assassinated on Friday.

 

The sources said that General Mohammed Suleiman was shot dead by a sniper in the Syrian port city of Tartous.

 

According to the Syrian newspaper Albawaba, the sources told another Arabic-language newspaper, the London-based Al-Hayat, that Syrian authorities have been trying to prevent the publication of the news regarding Suleiman's assassination.
 
The Syrian Web site "Free Syria", affiliated with Syrian opposition leader Abd al-Halim Khaddam, also dealt extensively with the assassination, and described Suleiman as Assad's right-hand man on military matters. According to the Web site, Suleiman was also a member of Syria's Baath Party, and held the government's Lebanon portfolio.

 

Albawaba stated that no organization has claimed responsibility for the killing as of yet and the reports did not say who was behind it.

 

The reports did, however, refer to the assassination of Hezbollah's senior commander Imad Mughniyah in February, and suggested that Israel was involved in the killing.