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Bashar Assad in the hot seat (AP)
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| By Associated Press October 21, 2005 |
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Israeli leaders on Friday called for changes in the Syrian leadership, after a U.N. probe implicated top Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The findings drew the first official link between Damascus and the Feb. 14 slaying of Hariri, a popular opposition leader. The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to discuss the report Tuesday and may consider sanctions against Syria.
"I think there needs to be change in Syria," said Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres, adding that the United States and France should take the lead in deciding on an international response to the findings.
Referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad and his relatives in positions of power, Peres said: "If it is true that the (Syrian) government is involved in the murder (of Hariri), this will shake up the rule of the Assads," Peres told Israel Radio.
He added that it is "not natural or acceptable" for a family representing a small minority to rule Syria in what he said was a brutal fashion.
The U.N. report stopped short of fingering Assad or his inner circle, but accused Syria of failing to cooperate and said the plot to kill Hariri in a car bomb must have had the blessing of Syrian security officials. The report includes a single reference to Assef Shawkat, Assad's brother-in-law and the Syrian intelligence chief. According to one witness, Shawkat forced a man to tape a claim of responsibility for Hariri's killing 15 days before it occurred.
Ephraim Halevy, former chief of Israel's Mossad spy agency, said it was not necessary to prove a direct involvement by Assad. "The head of the Syrian pyramid is Bashar Assad," Halevy told Israel Army Radio. "I don't think ... there is any doubt that this was an extensive and coordinated operation that was planned for many months. Lots of people from the Syrian elite were involved."
Israeli legislator Yuval Steinitz, head of parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, called for regime change in Damascus. "As far as I am concerned ... and here I have a dispute with some of the people in the (Israeli) security establishment, it is not just an American interest but a clear Israeli interest to end the Assad dynasty and replace Bashar Assad," said Steinitz, a member of Israel's ruling Likud Party.
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