Syrian propaganda is behind stories of Lebanese terror in Syria, and some journalists are playing along, writes Hussain Abdul-Hussain* Seymour Hersh, investigative reporter with The New Yorker, concluded a two-week trip to Damascus during the first half of October, according to The Guardian. The British daily reported that Hersh was in the process of writing a piece on Syria, yet one can only wonder what Hersh will reveal this time, more than a year after publishing one of his most uninformed pieces on terrorism in Lebanon. Hersh's expected report fits perfectly, with or without his knowledge, into a concerted Syrian propaganda campaign to prove that Saudi-funded terrorism is taking hold of northern Lebanon and, consequently, spilling over to Syria. The Syrian campaign started in early September when President Bashar Al-Assad, upon receiving his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy, accused unnamed Arab countries of instigating terrorist groups in northern Lebanon. For this purpose, Al-Assad called on his Lebanese counterpart Michel Suleiman to deploy Lebanese army units north. On 26 September, Al-Assad deployed massive troop numbers on the Syrian side of Lebanon's northern border in an attempt to convince the world that Damascus feared a terrorist penetration into its territories. A day later, a bomb went off in Damascus killing civilians only. If the Damascus bombing was a terrorist attack, like Syrian authorities would later claim, then it was the clumsiest attack radicals have so far executed. Yet Damascus was determined to show the world that it was the victim of Lebanese-grown, Saudi-funded terrorism. Hersh was seen in Beirut and Damascus during early October. But since Hersh's piece was scheduled to run at a later time, Damascus was impatient. Pro-Syrian Lebanese media started reporting on Hizbullah and the Lebanese Army Intelligence unveiling a Lebanese spy ring that worked for Israel and moved freely between Lebanon and Damascus, with some stories concluding that links could be proven between this ring and the killing of Hizbullah's leader Imad Mughniyah in Damascus earlier this year. Pending further investigations, the capture of this ring seemingly proved one thing: that Lebanon was the source of sabotage inside Syria. Still anxious to prove how disturbing "Lebanese terror" had become for Damascus, Syrian media put out, on 8 November, three reports. In the first, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported the confessions of so-called ringleaders responsible for the Damascus bombing of 27 September. According to the report, the terrorists belonged to Fatah Al-Islam, a radical group that fought with the Lebanese army during the summer of 2007 in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr Al-Bared in northern Lebanon. On that same day, Syria's state-run TV aired similar confessions, this time by Wafa, the daughter of Fatah Al-Islam's leader, Shaker Al-Absi, in which she said that her father and his group received funds from Lebanon's lawmaker and Sunni heavyweight politician Saad Al-Hariri. Syrian official media reports were coupled with an op-ed in The Asia Times. Sami Moubayed, an analyst close to the regime, entreated from America's President-elect Barack Obama the following: "Help Syria combat Islamic fundamentalism that has been flowing into its territory from north Lebanon and Iraq. The deadly 27 September attack in Damascus... should have been a wake-up call for the Americans that unless cooperation is forthcoming from the US, Syria might become a battleground for extremists." On 10 November, pro-Syria Lebanese lawmaker Michel Aoun entered the fray by commenting on Syrian accusations of Al-Hariri funding Fatah Al-Islam, highlighting an American report by none other than Hersh, saying that Hersh's story was proof enough that Al-Hariri stood behind this Sunni radical terror. So what did Hersh exactly write that is being repeatedly quoted by Syria's protégés in Lebanon? On 5 March 2007, The New Yorker ran a story entitled "The redirection" in which Hersh tried to prove that the pro-Washington Lebanese government, an ally of Al-Hariri and Saudi Arabia, had taken Fatah Al-Islam under its wing. Hersh based his findings on his conversation with a certain Alastair Crooke, "who spent nearly 30 years in Mi6, the British intelligence service," and was working in a Beirut think tank at the time. Crooke told Hersh that one "Sunni extremist group, Fatah Al-Islam, had splintered from its pro-Syrian parent group, Fatah Al-Intifada, in the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp, in northern Lebanon." Crooke added: "I was told that within 24 hours they were being offered weapons and money by people presenting themselves as representatives of the Lebanese government's interests -- presumably to take on Hizbullah." Thus a rumour was born based on Crooke, who was "told" the government offered Fatah Al-Islam arms and money "presumably to take on Hizbullah". Despite this flaw in Hersh's story, some information could not be disputed: Fatah Al-Islam was a splinter group of Fatah Al-Intifada, one of half a dozen Palestinian factions loyal to Syria and based in Lebanon. Splinter group does not mean anti-Syrian for, in Lebanon, several opposed factions are allied to Syria at the same time. The story of Fatah Al-Islam shows undisputed Syrian involvement in its creation. Its leader Al-Absi was arrested but released from prison in Syria in 2005, only three years after his arrest. Why would Syria let out a terrorist of the caliber of Al-Absi at a time it throws in prison people of much lesser weight, such as opposition figure Aref Dalila, who spent eight years behind bars before being released for health reasons? Also in a story by sources more credible than The New Yorker and Hersh, The Associated Press (AP) reported 8 June 2007, 20 days into Fatah Al-Islam's battle with the Lebanese army, that Al-Absi "was received with open arms by Fatah Uprising and its deputy leader, Abu Khaled Al-Amleh, who was based in Damascus." Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, an official of Fatah Uprising, told AP that his group trained Al-Absi's men in Yanta and Halwa in eastern Lebanon, close to the Syrian border. But when Fatah Uprising officials in Lebanon alerted their superiors in Damascus that Al-Absi's men "were behaving strangely", they were swiftly dismissed and told the group was in Lebanon for the "struggle" and to fight the "Zionist enemy", AP quoted Abu Mohamed as saying. In a nutshell Syria released Al-Absi from prison, sent him and his men for training in the camps of its staunchest Palestinian allies in Lebanon, dismissed accusations of strange behaviour against him, then invited Hersh to write in The New Yorker that a certain Crooke told him that he was "told" that the Lebanese government, Al-Hariri and the Saudis were behind the group and offered it money and weapons. This time, Damascus is up to a similar propaganda scheme, and it invited Hersh once again to the region. The Guardian wrote about Hersh's supporters saying they believe "that his mistakes -- and even the wilder allegations he sometimes makes in speeches -- should always be put in the context of his hit rate." But in a region as sensitive as the Middle East, there is no room for error in reporting. Hersh should realise that by pretending to highlight unfounded rumours, he ends up taking sides and vindicating one faction against another, a role that respectful journalists should never play. * The writer is a journalist based in Washington, DC.
