NICOSIA Ñ Syria has rejected a U.S. request to expel Islamic Jihad.
A Foreign Ministry statement said Islamic Jihad offices in Damascus are
not involved in insurgency operations against Israel. The statement said the
group confines its activities in Syria to information, Middle East Newsline reported.
"The [Islamic Jihad] operations are planned and executed inside the
occupied lands and not at instructions given to it from press offices that
exist in certain Arab states," Foreign Ministry spokesman Butheina Shaaban
said.
The United States has requested Syria to end its harboring of
Islamic Jihad. The U.S. request came in wake of an Israeli appeal that
Damascus be pressured by the international community to expel groups deemed
as terrorists from Syria.
"We will continue to make our point, as we have for some time, that
there is no place for support for this type of organization," State
Department deputy spokesman Philip Reeker said on Tuesday. "It is in the
Syrians' best interests to get with the mainstream of the international
community and reject this type of organization that conducts this type of
violence that doesn't produce anything except more pain and suffering for
people on all sides of the Middle East
peace process."
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack on Jewish
worshippers in Hebron over the weekend. Twelve people, nine of them
soldiers, were killed in the ambush. The worshippers, who returned from
prayer in the Cave of the Patriarchs, were not hurt.
"That organization is based in Damascus," Israeli Foreign Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu told foreign diplomats. "Ramadan Shallah, its leader, in
fact enjoys the patronage and the protection of the Syrian government. And
therefore, I urge all of you to include in your policies the clear-cut
demand that Syria be told to stop this action, be told to close down the
offices of the Islamic Jihad and the other terrorist organizations."
The Syrian rejection of the U.S. request came as the European Commission
ratified an 18 million euro aid program for Syria and Lebanon for the year
2002. A European statement said Lebanon will obtain 12 million euro and
Syria the rest. The aid to Syria is meant to draft a strategy to develop the
nation's industry.
The United States also reiterated its request to Israel to end military
overflights over Beirut and the Bekaa Valley. U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State David Satterfield relayed the appeal in wake of the buzzing of Israeli
fighter-jets over the Lebanese capital over the last two weeks.
On Sunday, Israeli fighter-jets conducted a reconnaissance mission over
the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon. Hizbullah gunners fired anti-aircraft
shells toward the Israeli planes.
