Pentagon's Arrest Of American-Syrian Soldier Sparks Surprise In Syria

Ibrahim Humeidi     Al-Hayat     2003/09/25

Damascus expressed its surprise yesterday on the Pentagon's arrest of an American soldier of Syrian origin who worked in the prison of Guantanamo, based on charges of espionage for Syria and leaking classified information.

Syria's Minister of Information Ahmad Al Hassan said that this accusation against Ahmad Al Halabi is "baseless." He wondered how a person could be appointed for a total secrecy job and then be discovered as working for another party? "This doesn't make sense," he said.

The arrest of Al Halabi, who is an Air Force translator who worked in Guantanamo, was simultaneous to the arrest of the Chinese-American officer James Yee (Joseph) who worked as a preacher in Guantanamo, and who is accused of spying as well, knowing that the latter studied religion in Damascus and married a Syrian woman. The U.S. authorities started investigating the preacher's relation with networks of extremists inside U.S. The Washington Post reported Pentagon officials as saying that Captain Yee resorted to Al Halabi's services for translation, even though he is fluent in Arabic. The authorities found on him 'secret' documents at the time of his arrest. The New York Times mentioned that Al Halabi (24 years) is facing more than 30 accusations, including that of attempting to leak the prison's schematics, in addition to prisoner's names and messages from them. He was arrested on July 23, but the authorities only mentioned something about it after CNN found out about it two days ago. The severest accusation is that of trying to "pass on secret information to the Syrian government," including two hand-written letters from prisoners in addition to a laptop containing 180 e-mails from prisoners "some of which were sent to addresses in Syria," according to Pentagon officials.

In Thailand, the authorities announced their success in thwarting the Jamaa Islamiyya's plan to bomb planes of the Israeli El Al company in Bangkok airport.

The Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra explained that the Jamaa's members accused of being affiliated to Al Qaeda, were planning on attacking El Al planes before their arrest last month. A high-ranking Thai responsible, who refused to disclose his name, confirmed that a Malaysian named Lee Lee confessed everything about the plan after his arrest last August, and hours before arresting Elias Radwan Essam Eddin, also known as Al Hanbali, who is thought to be the leader of the Jamaa Islamiyya in South East Asia.