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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><img width=89 height=20
src="http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Newsweek/Art/Standard_Component_Icons/nw_icon_full_logo.gif"></span></font></p>
<p><font size=6 color="#cc0000" face=Georgia><span style='font-size:24.0pt;
font-family:Georgia;color:#CC0000'>Center of the Web</span></font><font size=5
color="#cc0000" face=Georgia><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:Georgia;
color:#CC0000'> </span></font><br>
<font face=Tahoma><span style='font-family:Tahoma'>Who killed Rafik Hariri? A
long-awaited U.N. report points clearly to Damascus.</span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;font-weight:bold'>By Christopher Dickey and Kevin Peraino</span></font></b></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>Newsweek</span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Oct.
31, 2005 issue - Sheik Ahmed Abdel-Al was a busy man last Feb. 14, the day an enormous
truck bomb in Beirut killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and 22
others. He says he was working in his office at the benign-sounding Association
of Islamic Philanthropic Projects in Lebanon at the time and is innocent of any
crime. But calls made on the sheik's cell phone in the minutes before the
bombing and the hours and days afterward have led the United Nations commission
probing the murder to conclude that Abdel-Al, more than "any other
figure," is "linked to all the various aspects of this
investigation."</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>There
are other, higher-profile names in the report, which President George W. Bush
termed "deeply disturbing" after it was submitted to the Security
Council last week. The commission cites "converging evidence pointing at
both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in this terrorist act." President
Bashar al-Assad is not directly implicated, but an unnamed source in the report
"who claims to have worked for the Syrian intelligence services in
Lebanon" fingers his brother, Maher al-Assad, and brother-in-law Asef Shawkat
as the masterminds behind Hariri's murder.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Damascus
tried to dismiss the findings as rumor and speculation by anonymous witnesses
with their own agendas. "It's a pity that people are sitting and dreaming
and writing reports," said Syria's U.N. Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad. But the
U.S. and other countries were contemplating sanctions, including a ban on
commercial air traffic to Syria. What makes the commission's work a nightmare
for the al-Assad regime, in fact, is a mountain of documentary evidence that
includes the records of 70,195 telephone calls. "This is the first time
anyone has ever had the tools to build up a case as complicated as this against
Syria," says an Arab intelligence officer who served in Beirut during the
civil war and insists on anonymity.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Analyzed
with what the report calls "specialized software," the phone records
expose networks of fear and conspiracy as complex as wiring diagrams. Set
against the 30-year history of Syrian intrigues, they conform to a longstanding
pattern of covert activity using Lebanese officials and fronts to carry out
murderous attacks on the enemies of Damascus. In the 1980s, the targets
included American diplomats, soldiers and civilians. Today, even though Syrian
troops withdrew in April after enormous international pressure and popular
protests in Beirut, many of those networks still appear to be in place. The
U.N. report cites nine bombings and assassinations since May. As a result,
several anti-Syrian politicians, even though they won a majority of seats in
the Lebanese Parliament last June, have decided for their own protection to
spend much of their time outside the country.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>In
the schematics of the Hariri assassination laid out by Detlev Mehlis, the
German prosecutor who heads the commission, Abdel-Al looks like a switchboard
in the middle of these elaborate circuits. His organization, known as Al-Ahbash
in Arabic, works among Palestinians in their refugee camps, preaches an
Islamist line and maintains close ties to Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services.
It has connections in every direction. At 10:35 the morning Hariri was killed,
Abdel-Al called the chief of Lebanese state security in Beirut. At 11:42 he
called a Syrian intelligence officer named Jamea Jamea. At 11:47 he dialed
"a number" not otherwise identified in the report. At 12:12, he was
on the phone with another Lebanese Army intelligence officer. Hariri's
motorcade should have reached the point where he was killed at just about this
time, but was held up in traffic. At 12:26, a caller at the unidentified number
rang Abd! el-Al's home. The caller tried again at 12:46, then 12:47. Abdel-Al
himself called his home at 12:54. The bomb that killed Hariri went off at
12:56.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>And
the day was far from over. Abdel-Al made more calls to Syrian intel officers,
including Syria's proconsul for Lebanon, Gen. Rustum Ghazali. The sheik also
rang the head of Lebanese military intelligence. Abdel-Al's brother Mahmoud
works closely with Emile Lahoud, Lebanon's Syrian-backed president. Mahmoud
Abdel-Al called Lahoud at 12:47, nine minutes before the blast, then
immediately called the head of Lebanese military intelligence at 12:49.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Hariri
had been at the parliament building and might have taken any of three different
routes when he left. The records show that six mobile-phone numbers were used
by surveillance teams that had staked out the whole area. Those lines were
activated in January but never used for any communications except with each
other. On the morning of the killing there were several calls, but those stopped
at 12:53, three minutes before the explosion. None of those mobile-phone lines
was ever used again. The commission found they'd been bought from a company
with close links to Abdel-Al's organization.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>A
few minutes after the bombings, anonymous callers rang the Al-Jazeera and
Reuters news bureaus to claim the attack was the work of a hitherto unknown
group called Al-Nasra wal Jihad. (Records show calls had been made to Sheik
Abdel-Al from those same phone booths in the past.) Al-Jazeera was told where to
find a videotape of a young man named Ahmad Abu Adass, giving his reasons for
becoming a "martyr" by blowing up Hariri. After the tape aired on
Al-Jazeera, Abdel-Al became a conduit for information about Abu Adass, his
family and his fanaticism. The sheik tried to convince the U.N. commission that
Abu Adass was indeed the killer, but the commission didn't buy it. What the
evidence does show, the report concludes, is "that Mr. Abu Adass left his
home on Jan. 16, 2005 and was taken, voluntarily or not, to Syria, where he has
since disappeared."</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>The
case against Damascus won't go away any time soon, however. The mandate for
Mehlis to continue his investigation has been extended to Dec. 15.</span></font></p>
<p><i><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Verdana;
font-style:italic'>With John Barry and Mark Hosenball in Washington</span></font></i><font
face=Verdana><span style='font-family:Verdana'> </span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;font-style:italic'>© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.</span></font></i> </p>
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