Lebanon issues arrest warrant for Syria intel chief

BEIRUT / DAMSCUS

Iran’s security chief Jalili says Israel will regret its aggression against Syria, as in all its wars. AFP photo

A Lebanese judge issued arrest warrants today for a top Syrian intelligence official and his aide for their alleged involvement in a bombing plot in Lebanon, judicial officials said.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Brig. Gen. Ali Mamlouk is accused of being involved with Lebanon’s former information minister who allegedly plotted a wave of attacks in Lebanon at the behest of Syria.

Lebanon and Syria share a complex web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries and there are fears in Lebanon that Syria’s civil war could spill across the border. The officials said the warrants were issued by Investigative Judge Riad Abu Ghaida.

They said one of Mamlouk’s aides, a colonel who was identified with only his first name, Adnan, was named in the other warrant. The August arrest of the former information minister, Michel Samaha, was an embarrassing blow to Syria, which has long acted with impunity in Lebanon.
 
Mamlouk, head of Syria’s national security council, was indicted in absentia along with Samaha in the summer.

'Israel will regret strike'

In October, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, a top Lebanese anti-Syrian intelligence official, was killed in a car bomb that exploded next to his car in a Beirut neighborhood.

Meanwhile, Iran’s security chief Saeed Jalili said that Israel will regret its latest “aggression against Syria,” during a visit to Damascus. “Just like it regretted all its wars... the Zionist entity will regret its aggression against Syria,” Jalili, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said a day after Israel implicitly confirmed it staged an air strike near Damascus last week.

“The Syrian people and government are serious about this, and the Muslim world supports Syria,” Jalili said. “Syria is at the forefront of the Muslim world’s confrontation with the Zionist entity,” he added, in reference to Israel.

Compiled from AP and AFP stories by the Daily News staff.