Damascus, Syria
The U.N. Security Council passed a unanimous resolution this week ordering Syria to cooperate with the investigation into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. A U.N. report last week implicated the brother and brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the February killing. Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa angrily rejected the resolution, saying that accusing Syria of having advance knowledge of Hariri’s killing was tantamount to charging that U.S. officials knew ahead of time about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; that Spanish authorities knew in advance about the 2004 Madrid train bombings; and that the British knew about this summer’s London subway and bus bombings. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called the comparisons “grotesque and insensitive.”
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