"A non-existent Abbas will help the Assad regime, because it eliminates
a major witness and operative into the Hariri assassination and will
handicap the UN tribunal," the Reform Party of Syria said.
This was the second assassination of a senior Syrian officer sought by
the UN panel. In August, Assad's military adviser, Maj. Gen. Mohammed
Suleiman, was killed by a sniper in the Syrian port city of Tartous.
RPS said Abbas was believed to have played a major role in the Hariri
assassination in 2005. The Washington-based group said Abbas "delivered the
rigged truck that killed Hariri."
The Syrian government had a different story.
The semi-official Al Watan daily quoted a Syrian security source as
identifying the brigadier general as George Ibrahimi Al Gharbi. The newspaper said
the attackers were non-Syrian Arab nationals, and that several of them were
arrested. The source said the target of the car bombing was not the
Palestine branch of Syrian intelligence headquarters.
"Investigations are underway to determine the terrorists' real target,"
the Syrian source was quoted as saying. "Investigations have shown that this
cell was working towards disturbing the security and stability of Syria at
the instruction of the parties that fund it."
