Non-Arabs arrested in Syria over assassination

Lebanese source: Syria also detained Palestinians in connection with the Hizbullah commander's death.

mottaki mughniyeh 224 (photo credit: Channel 10)
mottaki mughniyeh 224
(photo credit: Channel 10)
Syria also arrested non-Arab foreigners suspected of being involved in the assassination of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh this week, the Lebanese Al-Akhbar reported Saturday. According to the report, senior Syrian government officials suspect that Western intelligence organizations were involved in the assassination. The suspects' identities were still unknown. On Friday, a Lebanese security source told Reuters that Syrian security forces have arrested several Palestinians suspects in connection with the assassination of Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyeh. The source added that Hizbullah had appointed a successor to Mughniyeh within hours of his death in a car bomb blast in the Syrian capital. Earlier Friday, Iran's state news agency reported that Syria and Iran agreed to conduct a joint investigation into the assassination of Mughniyeh, An Iranian television station aired what it said was mobile phone video footage of the car bomb blast that killed Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh in the Syrian capital, Damascus. The grainy, dark images appeared to have been taken moments after the blast Tuesday night. They show a vehicle engulfed in flames on a street at night time and several people, apparently bystanders, are seen running by. It cannot be seen whether anyone is in the vehicle in the images, taken from a distance and lasting a few seconds. The video was shown on Iran's state-run Arabic channel, Al-Alam. The station did not say how it obtained the footage. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met in Damascus on Friday with Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa to discuss the assassination. Iran and Hizbullah have accused Israel of killing Mughniyeh, and Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed in a eulogy to the slain militant on Thursday that his Shiite guerrilla group would retaliate against Israeli interests anywhere in the world. In Teheran, Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Reza Sheik Attar said that during Mottaki's visit to Damascus, which began Thursday, Iran and Syria had agreed to form a joint investigation team to "look into the root causes and dimensions of the assassination to identify the perpetrators of this dirty crime," the state IRNA news agency reported.