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Syria Helped Save U.S. Lives: Burns
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Burns said the Syrians saved American lives
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WASHINGTON, June 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Despite the
fact that Syria is on the list of countries deemed to be sponsoring
terrorism, a senior U.S. State Department official admitted Tuesday,
June 18, 2002, that Syria has provided the United States with
information on Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, which saved
American lives.
“It is true that the cooperation the Syrians have provided, in their
own self-interest, on Al-Qaeda, has saved American lives,” U.S.
Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns said
at a congressional hearing.
Burns, who was testifying before a House subcommittee on the Middle
East, gave no details on the information turned over by the Syrians
nor did he say when it was passed on, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.
The comments coincided with German television reports that a German
citizen of Syrian origin wanted for allegedly helping plan the
September 11 attacks on the United States was in a prison in Syria.
Mohammed Zammar, 41, has been held in a Syrian prison for months,
German public television network ZDF reported, quoting German security
sources.
Zammar is believed to have recruited Mohammed Atta, the alleged
mastermind behind the group of 19 men who carried out the September 11
attacks in the U.S.
He was questioned by German police after last year’s attacks, but
was soon released. Burns, however, made no mention of the Zammar case.
U.S. daily newspaper, the Washington Post, reported that the
debriefing of Zammar “is an extraordinary example of the way
September 11 has redefined U.S. engagement with regimes it once
vilified.”
Burns said the relationship between Washington and Syria, which is on
the U.S. list of countries deemed to be sponsoring terrorism, “is a
very complicated one.
“We have some very serious problems with Syria... We have also made
it clear that our agenda on terrorism extends well beyond Al-Qaeda,”
he added.
“It includes groups like Hezbollah, which have been responsible for
killing of Americans in the past, which have threatened American
interests. That’s a choice that Syria is going to have to make.”
Hezbollah, the Islamic resistance movement in Lebanon, freed the south
of Lebanon from Israeli occupation in May 2000. The movement is
unofficially supported by Arab countries including Syria.
Syria’s support to the resistance movements in Palestine have also
been a reason behind putting Syria in the list that includes the
states the U.S. considers sponsoring terrorism.
Syria
has accepted key Palestinian resistance figures into its borders, such
as Khaled Mishaal, one of the leaders of the Islamic resistance
movement Hamas, a group the U.S. considers as “terrorist” for its
attacks against the Israeli occupation.
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