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Saturday, December 31, 2005 

Syrian Vice-President accuses Bashar

Former Syrian Vice-President Abdul Halim Khaddam - who resigned in June - has accused Bashar of threatening Rafiq Al-Hariri.

In an astonishing statement, he says: "Assad told me he had delivered some very, very harsh words to Hariri... something like 'I will crush anyone who tries to disobey us'." It supports claims made by UN Investigator Detlev Mehlis.

Khaddam was a close personal friend of Rafiq Al-Hariri, and the only member of the Syrian government to attend his funeral.

He also said that the Syrian security services could not have killed Hariri without the personal knowledge of Bashar.

WHY NOW?

Khaddam is now living in Paris, and it's thought today's statement is an attempt to position himself as a replacement for Bashar.

Or it could be an attempt to extricate himself from being implicated in the killing: Khaddam was the Syrian government member in charge of Lebanon at the time of Hariri's death.

OLD GUARD

Khaddam - a stalwart of the old guard - was removed by Bashar in June in an attempt to bring reformists into government and replace old faces from Hafez's dirty era. But Khaddam didn't support the changes, and his removal: he said he is "convinced that the process of development and reforms, be they political, economic or administrative, will not succeed".

He said today he was cutting links with 'authoritarian' Bashar.

For the first time, there is a viable alternative to Bashar. Khaddam: Hafez-lite.

I need norman, where is norman?
We must have the correct spin on this issue !

those who live in glass houses should not throw stones; is it true that Khaddam's son was paid by a Western country to allow it to dump "dirty" waste near Homs ?
With credentials like these one shuts up.

HI anon,i am back ,i was on vacation in vermont ,i do not Skey but the kids do ,We all Syrians know that when we say we are going to kill somebody if he does not do what we want,that does not mean literly killing otherwise my mother would have burried me many times as she alwlways threatend me with death when i did not do what she wanted so i do not know where Khadam was born and raised as only in west they mean to kill you if they say so ,one more thing didn,t Khadam say that Bashar said that he will destroy anybody who objects to the reelection of president Lahood,didn,t Hareri lead the reelection campain of MR Lahood so the people who killed Harreri killed him for doing that in regard to Syria he did what Syria wanted so there was no reason to kill him.by the way anon give yourself a name so we know it is you ,you can write it at the end of your note if you do not want to have a blog name.

Well, I could not understand, these "INNOCENT" people in ASSAD regim could not harm a fly!!!

In fact did you know that Little Assad was elected by 99.9999999% of the Syrain people.( there was only one vote against Bachar from a Houmssy who voted for Boush, he didn't get it, anyway in time !!!, but surely he'll never repeat such errors especially in hell)

Pro-Syrian mahmoud al-barazany

As someone who grew up in Syria during the haydays of Khaddam and his cronies, I and many of my generation are all too familiar with the excesses of this thief and his sons. He is simply the Don of one of many Mafia families in Syria, like the Assads, the Makhloufs, the Nasseefs, the Tlasses, the Haydars and the Shehabis.. to name but a few!!.. These thugs have syphoned off millions upon millions of dollars from the Syrian economy, sucking off the very life of the Country.. For Khaddam to turn now and say he feels for the Syrian people is an insult to the intelligence of the Syrian masses.. Khaddam: burn in Hell.. and take with you all those Dons and their 'mafiosi'.. Perhaps Syria can then rise from the ashes that you and your gangs have turned her into...

Annie, so you'd rather if they all shut up and cover for each other's corruption?
I for one would love it if they all throw stones at each other so we know all the dirt they have hidden.

norman, hope you enjoyed your vacation. I'll be known as tac (The Anonymous Coward) so you can easilly recognize me :-)

Nice examples over the semantics, but the problem is you never got killed, and your mother had no History of killing and syria was not Hariri's mother, and your mother was not a dictator, otherwise it's a great example.

On a more serious note, I have no problem with the "we said it but we didn't mean it in that way" explanation.

A few months ago there was a disagreement, some people were saying the Syrian regime threatened and killed Hariri others were saying nooooo they were best friends with him.

Now there is still a disagreement, except some people are still saying the syrian regime threatened and killed Hariri, the others are now saying they threaten him but they didn't mean it.
Notice how the two stories are converging?

On the Lahoud point. No one is saying they killed Hariri because he didn't extend for Lahoud.
We are saying: the fact they they threatened to kill him on that occasion -and other occasions- makes them THE PRIME SUSPECT untill we know something new.

Then again maybe one day we'll discover they did say it in a motherly loving tone voice :-)

TAC

TAC ,my cousins used to live in Ashrafeia when Jumblat was boming their area ,it was not Syria who did that to them, they left and came to stay in Damascus,they stayed untill Syria went into Lebanon to restore peace ,Lebanon owe alot to Syria .

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