Syria accuses Israel of assassinating high-ranking official
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DAMASCUS • Syria's government has accused Israel of assassinating a high-ranking official who spent 12 years in an Israeli prison on terrorism charges before serving decades in the Syrian government.
The official, Mr Midhat Saleh, who was responsible for overseeing the strategic Golan Heights boundary, was shot and killed by an apparent sniper while inside Syria near the shared border between the two countries.
In a statement last Saturday announcing Mr Saleh's death, Syria's Presidency of the Council of Ministers said he was "targeted by the Israeli enemy with bursts of treacherous bullets while returning to his home".
Mr Saleh, 54, a member of the Druse religious minority, had spent 12 years in an Israeli prison on charges of using mines and explosives with the intention of killing Israeli civilians and soldiers. In 1997, after his release, he went to Syria, where he was elected to Parliament.
A senior Israeli defence official, who would not address Israel's involvement in any killing, said Mr Saleh was working with Iran's Revolutionary Guard to establish the military infrastructure along the border necessary for an attack against Israel.
Israel has been operating aggressively against Iran in Syria since the country's civil war began and has attacked Iranian or Iranian-related targets in the country at least hundreds of times and carried out a series of assassinations.
The fighting between Israel and Iran inside Syria effectively constitutes a shadow war as regional powers test their opponents' abilities.
Israel has long maintained that Iran represents a threat to its existence and has targeted the Islamic Republic's agents both outside and inside Iran, thwarting its nuclear weapons programme and killing its top scientists and operatives.
The assassination was the fourth attack last week against Iranian forces in Syria attributed to Israel.
Syria's Prime Minister Hussein Arnous described Mr Saleh's assassination as a cowardly act.
Mr Hussam Edin Aala, the country's United Nations representative, called him "a man who devoted his life to defending the rights of his people in the occupied Syrian Golan".
NYTIMES
