Syria undergoing creeping Islamization

LONDON -- Syria is undergoing a creeping process of Islamization expected to increase as an ailing President Hafez Assad begins to lose his grip on power, diplomatic sources said.

The sources said signs of Islamic fervor are increasing both in Damascus and particularly in provincial cities. They cited an increase in mosque attendance, beards and public observance of the fast month of Ramadan.

The Islamization, however, has a militant side, the sources said. They report that Christians and non-Sunnis are expressing rising concern over pressure to observe Muslim tenets in towns with large non-Sunni minorities.

Diplomatic sources said they were waiting for clarification of the killing of a leading Islamic cleric connected to the Assad regime. Sheik Mohammed Amin Yakan, 62, was assassinated last week as he was driven to Tarhin village near Aleppo.

A relative of the sheik told the Al Hayat daily that he was killed in a "criminal and not political" attack related to a land dispute.

But the sources said the killing of such a senior cleric reflected a new daring by Islamic opponents of Assad. In 1997, the sheik was involved in several mediation efforts to reconcile the Assad regime with the Muslim Brother, the chief Islamic opposition.

Assad drove the Brotherhood underground in 1984 in a campaign that was said to have killed 20,000 opponents of the regime.