A senior Syrian journalist reports Iraqs WMD located in three Syrian sites
DEBKAfile Intelligence
6 January 2004
Nizar Najoef, a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, that he knows the three sites where Iraqs WMD are kept. The storage places are:
1. Tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria. These tunnels are an integral part of an underground factory, built by the North Koreans, for producing Syrian Scud missiles. Iraqi chemical weapons and long-range missiles are stored in these tunnels.
2. The village of Tal Snan, north of the town of Salamija, where there is a big Syrian airforce camp. Vital parts of Iraqs WMD are stored there.
3. The city of Sjinsjar on the Syrian border with the Lebanon, south of the city Homs.
Najoef writes that the transfer of Iraqi WMD to Syria was organized by the commanders of Saddam Husseins Special Republican Guard, including General Shalish, with the help of Assif Shoakat , Bashar Assads cousin. Shoakat is the CEO of Bhaha, an import/export company owned by the Assad family.
In February 2003, a month before Americas invasion in Iraq, DEBKAfile and DEBKA-Net-Weekly were the only media to report the movement of Iraqi WMD, the efforts to bring them from Iraq to Syria, and the personal involvement of Bashar Assad and his family in the operation.
Najoef, who has won prizes for journalistic integrity, says he wrote his letter
because he has terminal cancer.