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DE RUEHDM #0908/01 3640430
ZNR UUUUU ZZH (CCY AD136D0B MSI2965-695)
P 290430Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5718
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHEE/ARAB LEAGUE COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS DAMASCUS 000908 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
C O R R E C T E D COPY CAPTION 
S/CT: RHONDA SHORE; NCTC 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PTER ASEC
SUBJECT: SYRIA: 2008 COUNTRY REPORT ON TERRORISM 
 
REF: A. STATE 124815 
     ¶B. STATE 120019 
 
¶1. (SBU) Russell Comeau is the Embassy POC.  Address:  6110 
Damascus Place, Dulles, VA 20189.  Unclassified e-mail: 
ComeauR@State.gov.  Tel:  ( 963) 11-3391-3785. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Designated in 1979 as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, 
Syria in 2008 continued political support to Palestinian 
terrorist groups.  It also provided political and material 
support to Hizballah and allowed Iran to resupply this 
organization with weapons.  Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad 
(PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine 
(PLFP), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of 
Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), among others, base their 
external leadership in Damascus and operate within Syria's 
borders.  The Syrian government insists the Damascus-based 
groups are confined to political and informational 
activities, but groups with leaders in Syria have claimed 
responsibility for anti-Israeli terrorist attacks. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Over the course of the year, Syria's public support 
for the Palestinian groups varied, depending on Syrian 
national interest and international pressure.  President 
Bashar al-Asad continued to express public support for 
Palestinian rejectionist groups.  Hamas Politburo head and 
defacto leader Khalid Mesh'al and his deputies continued to 
reside in Syria.  Syria provided a safehaven for Mesh'al and 
security escorts for his motorcades.  Meshal's use of the 
Syrian Ministry of Information as the venue for press 
conferences this year can be taken as an endorsement of 
Hamas's message.  Media reports indicate Hamas used Syrian 
soil as training grounds for its militant fighters.  Though 
the Syrian government claimed periodically that it used its 
influence to restrain the rhetoric and activities of 
Palestinian groups, the Syrian government allowed a 
Palestinian rejctionist conference organized by Hamas, 
PFLP-GC, and PIJ to occur in January and another Hamas 
organized conference, reportedly funded by Iran, to occur in 
November. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Highlighting Syria's ties to the world's most 
notorious terrorists, Hizballah Operations Chief Imad 
Mugniyah perished in a car bomb that exploded near Syrian 
Military Intelligence (SMI) headquarters in the Damascus 
neighborhood of Kafr Sousa on February 12.  Among other 
atrocities, Mugniyah was wanted in connection with the 1983 
bombings of the Marine barracks and U.S. Embassy in Beirut, 
which killed over 350.  Despite initial attempts to cover up 
the incident, the Syrian government reluctantly acknowledged 
some days later that one of the world's most wanted 
terrorists had been present and died on Syrian soil. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Syrian officials publicly condemned some acts of 
terrorism, while continuing to defend what they considered to 
be legitimate armed resistance by Palestinians and Hizballah 
against Israeli occupation of Arab territory, and by the 
Iraqi opposition against the "occupation of Iraq."  Syria has 
not been directly implicated in an act of terrorism since 
1986, although an ongoing UN investigation into the February 
2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq 
Hariri continued to investigate Syrian involvement. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Syria itself was the location of at least one major 
attack involving a terrorist group with which it had or used 
to have ties.  On September 27, the car-bombing of a Syrian 
government facility reportedly injured 14 and killed at least 
17 individuals, marking the first significant attack against 
regime institutions in nearly 20 years.  Not since the Muslim 
Brotherhood uprising in the early 1980s have Syrian 
institutions been targeted by terrorists.  Regional media 
reports indicated this bombing was directed at the 
Palestinian Branch of the Syrian Military Intelligence. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Throughout the year Syria continued to strengthen 
ties with fellow state sponsor of terrorism, Iran.  Syria's 
Minister of Defense visited Tehran in May and initiated a 
defense cooperation Memorandum of Understanding.  Syria also 
allowed leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian groups to 
visit Tehran.  President Asad repaid a 2007 visit to Damascus 
by Iranian President Ahmadinejad with a visit of his own to 
Tehran in early August, his third visit since 2005.  Asad 
continued to be a staunch defender of Iran's policies, 
including Iran's "civil" nuclear ambitions. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Syria increased border monitoring activities, 
instituted tighter screening practices on military-age Arab 
males entering its borders, hosted two Border Security 
Working Group meetings with technical experts from the Iraqi 
Neighbors group and expressed a desire to increase security 
cooperation with Iraq.  At the same time, Syria remained a 
key hub for foreign fighters en route to Iraq.  The Syrian 
government continued to harbor former Iraqi regime elements. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The U.S. Government designated several Iraqis and 
Iraqi-owned entities residing in Syria which provided 
financial, material, and technical support for acts of 
violence that threatened the peace and stability of Iraq, 
including Mish'an Al-Jaburi and his satellite television 
channel Al-Ra'y.  Additionally, the U.S. Government 
designated known foreign fighter facilitators based in Syria, 
including members of the Abu Ghadiyah network, which 
orchestrated the flow of terrorists, weapons, and money from 
Syria to al-Qaida in Iraq.  Attacks against Coalition Forces 
and Iraqi citizens continued to have a destabilizing effect 
on Iraq's internal security.  Though Syrian and Iraqi leaders 
met throughout the year both publicly and privately to 
discuss border enhancements and other measures needed to 
combat foreign fighter flows, there have been few tangible 
results. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Despite acknowledged reductions in foreign fighter 
flows, the scope and impact of the problem remained 
significant.  Syria continued to allow former Iraqi regime 
elements to operate in the country.  According to the 
December 2007 "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq" 
report to Congress, nearly 90% of all foreign terrorists 
known in Iraq used Syria as an entry point, and there is no 
evidence to suggest that this percentage has diminished over 
the past year.  While Syria has taken some positive steps, 
the Syrian government can do more to interdict known 
terrorist networks and foreign fighter facilitators operating 
within its borders.  Syria's ability to turn the flow of 
fighters off and on for political reasons was apparent in the 
wake of the alleged October 26 military incursion into Syria, 
when the Syrian government's self-described response was to 
remove border guards from key border checkpoints along the 
Iraqi/Syrian border. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Syria remains a source of concern regarding 
terrorist financing. The Commercial Bank of Syria remains 
subject to U.S. sanctions.  Industry experts report that 70 
percent of all business transitions are conducted in cash and 
that nearly 90 percent of all Syrians do not use formal 
banking services.  Despite SARG legislation requiring 
money-changers to be licensed by the end of 2007, many 
money-changers continued to operate illegally in Syria's vast 
black market, estimated to be as large as Syria's formal 
economy.  Regional "hawala" networks remain intertwined with 
smuggling and trade-based money laundering - facilitated by 
notoriously corrupt customs and immigration officials - 
raising significant concerns that Syrian government and 
business elite are, at the very least, complicit in terror 
financing schemes. 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Syria's government-controlled press continued to 
tout Syrian regime efforts to combat terrorism.  The Syrian 
government, using tightly-controlled press outlets, was quick 
to blame a Lebanese-based, al-Qaida affiliated group, Fatah 
al-Islam, for this attack.  Syrian TV broadcast a November 7 
program featuring the confessions of some 20 Fatah al-Islam 
members, including the daughter and son-in-law of Fatah 
al-Islam leader Shakr al-Absy, of their involvement in the 
attack against the prominent military intelligence 
installation.  Syrian and other commentators have noted that 
the Syrian government allegedly had maintained ties to Shakr 
al-Absy, for whom Jordanian authorities had issued an arrest 
warrant for the 2003 murder of USAID employee Lawrence Foley. 
 Fatah al-Islam was also involved in the 2007 standoff 
against the Lebanese Armed Forces in the Nahr al Barid camp 
located in northern Lebanon.  It remains unclear why this 
group would have launched an attack against Syrian security 
elements, but media reports suggest Absy's disappearance 
inside of Syria as a possible motive.  In response to the 
September 27 bombing, the Syrian security services conducted 
at least one reported raid on a terror cell residing in the 
Damascus area, killing and arresting several suspected 
militants and confiscating a cache of weapons and explosives. 
 Since the attack, the regime has attempted to portray Syria 
as a victim of terrorism rather than a purveyor of it. 
 
CONNELLY