Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Syrian intelligence agents going covert in Lebanon

Washington Post:

Syria has not withdrawn a significant part of its intelligence presence in Lebanon, undermining its claim yesterday to have ended its 29-year intervention in its western neighbor, U.S., European and U.N. officials said.

The international community yesterday welcomed the pullout of the last of 14,000 Syrian troops from Lebanon. But the continuing presence of covert Syrian intelligence operatives would violate the promise President Bashar Assad made to the United Nations last month to withdraw all Syrian personnel. It would also contradict a letter the Syrian government wrote to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday saying that the withdrawal was complete.

U.N. member states and the Lebanese opposition have told the United Nations that Syrian military intelligence has taken up new positions "in the south of Beirut and elsewhere, and has been using headquarters of parties affiliated with the government of Syria as well as privately rented apartments for their purposes," said a report Annan made to the Security Council and released yesterday.

The report notes that Syria and the pro-Syrian government in Beirut have denied those allegations, and it confirms that Syria closed its intelligence headquarters at Beirut's Beau Rivage hotel. But the Bush administration, which with France co-sponsored the U.N. resolution requiring Syria's pullout, said Damascus is not yet complying. "Some have left, but not all," said deputy State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli.

Syrian intelligence is also deployed in Palestinian refugee camps and communities, some of which have suddenly grown larger, U.S. officials and Western diplomats said. One Palestinian community in the eastern Bekaa valley, which is tied to the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), is of particular concern, as are strategic locations inside the Lebanese border with Syria, Western envoys said. The PFLP is based in Damascus.

...

The United States is counting on a new U.N. verification team sent to Lebanon this week to investigate Syria's intelligence presence and to provide "a considered judgment" that will "inform our deliberations" at the Security Council. If Syria does not comply, Washington and Paris may propose punitive steps, Ereli said.

My guess is the Mossad could probably tell us where the Syrian agents are. It is important to hold Assad to his word. However the bad news for the Syrians would be that these agents would be back home to focus on domestic security.