Thursday, October 02, 2008

The unravelling of the Syria Iran axis?

Is the secretive (ish) peace process between Israel and Syria starting to take its toll on the Syria/Iran alliance. It would seem so......


Iranian intelligence agencies have recently issued a travel advisory urging officials holding sensitive positions and top Hizbullah figures to refrain from visiting Syria for fear of possible assassination attempts and terror attacks against them, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Thursday.

The car bomb explosion near Damascus last week, which killed a senior Syrian army officer and 16 civilians, spotlighted the unprecedented tension between Syria, Iran and Iran's offshoot in Lebanon Hizbullah.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said an Arab state was responsible for smuggling into Syria the car and explosives used in the attack, but did not name the country he suspected.

In another sign of the deteriorating relations between Syria and Iran, Assad ordered the deployment of thousands of troops along the border with Lebanon after calling the country a security threat.

Iran continues to transfer arms to Hizbullah in violation of UN Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.

Meanwhile, Hizbullah has accused Assad of leaking classified information regarding the Lebanese Shiite group's plans to kidnap Israeli businessmen abroad.

According to information obtained by Yedioth Ahronoth, top Assad advisor Brigadier General Mohammed Suleiman secretly visited Paris two months ago and disclosed information regarding Hizbullah's plan to abduct two Israeli businessmen in Thailand and in one of the Gulf States.

Suleiman, who also served as Syria's liaison officer to Hizbullah, was assassinated in the Syrian port city of Tartous shortly after Hizbullah's plans were made public in Israel.

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