UNITED NATIONS, June 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Syria has given the United States information in the fight against terrorism that helped save American lives, Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara said Friday, June 21, 2002.

"I am not going to confirm anything related to security, but I can confirm the substance of reports that we have helped save American lives," Shara said when asked at a news conference about the reported arrest in Syria of a man suspected of helping to plan September 11 attacks on the United States, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

"We are against terrorism," he added.

Heading off U.S. charges that Syria sponsors what the U.S. calls terrorist groups opposed to Israel, Shara said: "The Americans know very well that we distinguish between terrorists such as Al-Qaeda and resistance groups in Israeli-occupied territory."

A senior State Department official said Tuesday at a congressional hearing in Washington that Syria had provided information about Al-Qaeda, led by the Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, AFP reported.

"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.

Neither Burns nor Shara made any comment on a German television report that Mohammed Zammar, 41, a German citizen of Syrian origin, has been held in a Syrian prison for months.

Zammar is believed to have recruited Mohammed Atta, the alleged ringleader of 19 men who hijacked four planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon near Washington and a field in Pennsylvania.

Shara was in New York to chair a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. Syria, one of the 10 countries elected to a two-year council seat, holds the presidency this month.

Last week, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, James Cunningham, warned during a session on the Middle East that Syria would be in breach of council resolutions unless it took action against terrorist groups.

Cunningham noted that Islamic Jihad, which has its headquarters in Damascus, claimed credit for a June 5 car bomb attack on a public bus in Israel that killed 17 and wounded 30.

But Shara said Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups had only "press offices" inside Syria. All their operations were planned and executed in Israeli-held lands, he said.

As for the Islamic resistance movement Hezbollah, based in south Lebanon, "it enjoys popular support not only in Syria and Lebanon, but also among Arabs living in Israel," Shara said. "It is a Lebanese resistance group and can be called by no other name."

The Middle East crisis could not be solved until Israeli occupation of Arab land ended, he said.

Shara recalled that the Arab summit held in Beirut in March had endorsed a plan offering to normalize relations in exchange for Israel's withdrawal from all territories captured in 1967.