Man charged in U.S. for spying on Syrian protesters

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Syrian-born U.S. citizen Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid appears in Federal Court in Alexandria, VA in a courtroom sketch, October 11, 2011. Soueid was arrested and charged in Virginia with spying on anti-Syrian protesters in the United States and passing the details on to Damascus, U.S. prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Credit: Reuters/William Hennessy

By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:26pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Syrian-born U.S. citizen has been arrested and charged in Virginia with spying on anti-Syrian protesters in the United States and passing the details on to Damascus, U.S. prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid, 47, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was accused of acting as an agent of the Syrian intelligence service and collecting video and audio recordings of protesters against Syria and President Bashar al-Assad.

Soueid also was accused of recruiting others to collect information about protesters and sending materials to the Syrian embassy in Washington and to Damascus, according to an indictment unsealed on Wednesday.

In June, he flew to Syria where he met Assad in a group and also spoke with him privately, the 15-page indictment said. The charges did not reveal how Soueid's alleged activities became known to U.S. authorities.

The Syrian embassy in Washington issued a lengthy denial, saying that Soueid did not work for the Syrian government, never met with Assad, was never paid by Damascus and had not provided any information about U.S. protesters.

He was arrested on Tuesday on charges of acting as an unregistered foreign agent operating in the United States, conspiracy, making false statements to FBI agents and lying on forms he filled out while buying a .40 caliber pistol.

"The ability to assemble and protest is a cherished right in the United States," U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said in a statement.

Soueid, who lives in Leesburg, Virginia, outside Washington, appeared briefly in federal court where a judge ordered him held pending a detention hearing slated for Friday. He had not yet retained a lawyer, according to prosecutors.

FBI INVESTIGATION

The United States has imposed sanctions on Assad and his government since the start of the crackdown that the United Nations estimates has killed at least 2,700 people.

A State Department spokeswoman said that it had complained previously about harassment of Syrians in the United States. "You see here the first fruits of the FBI's investigation," said the spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

Starting around March 2011, Soueid worked as part of a network of operatives in the United States, sending some 20 video and audio recordings of protests and conversations with protesters, according to the indictment.

In one instance, Soueid sent a coded message in April to the Syrian intelligence service via email that described a meeting of protesters in a Virginia suburb of Washington.

He also sent to his contact at the Syrian embassy in Washington a website link for protesters in the United States, the indictment said.

In addition, he sent contact details, including phone numbers and email addresses of the protesters, the charging document said.

He returned from his trip to Syria in July and was questioned and searched at Dulles International Airport. That prompted him to tell his Syrian contacts that he had changed procedures and also said that the incident at the airport would not stop him, according to the indictment.

About a month later, Soueid was confronted by FBI agents but he denied collecting information and sending it to the Syrian government, according to prosecutors. He was accused by Syrians and Syrian Americans in May in a private civil lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court of helping the Syrian government target their families back in the country.

The lawsuit also accused Syria and others of violating international law including killing and torturing them.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn; Editing by Philip Barbara and Sandra Maler)

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Syrian tanks pound rebel town near Homs, 3 injured

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By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN | Sun Sep 25, 2011 11:09pm EDT

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian tanks pounded a town on a strategic highway overnight, injuring at least three people during a military crackdown on dissent in the central region of Homs, activists and residents said on Monday.

Homs has become a major flashpoint between troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and army defectors, backing pro-democracy protesters demanding the president's overthrow.

Three inhabitants of al-Rastan were injured when pro-Assad forces opened fire with heavy machine guns mounted on the tanks surrounding the town, on the main northern highway leading to Turkey, said residents.

"There are around 60 tanks and armored vehicles on the eastern edge of Rastan alone. All communications are cut and the firing is being directed at the street and buildings," Abu Qassem, a resident of al-Rastan, told Reuters by satellite phone.

Activists have reported a military push into towns and villages north of the city of Homs, 100 miles north of Damascus, where increasing numbers of defectors have been organizing and mounting guerrilla raids on loyalist posts.

Faced with expanding street protests demanding an end to 41 years of Assad family rule, the president has sent troops and tanks into cities and towns across the country.

The military crackdown has killed at least 2,700 people, including 100 children, according to the United Nations.

Syrian authorities say 700 police and army have been killed during the unrest which they blame on "terrorists" and "mutineers."

Assad has said foreign powers are using the unrest to divide Syria, and added any state would use similar techniques to end a revolt.

Homs, together with the northwestern province of Idlib on the border with Turkey, has traditionally provided the bulk of majority Sunni foot soldiers in the military, which is effectively commanded by Assad's brother Maher and led by officers from Assad's minority Alawite sect.

The two regions have seen some of the biggest street protests against Assad in the last few weeks.

Troops earlier stormed the villages of Za'faraneh and Deir al-Jin, between Rastan and the town of Talbiseh to the south, local activists said, adding that there was no immediate information on casualties.

Syria's crackdown protests has sparked international outrage and rebukes from Syria's powerful northern neighbor Turkey, once among Assad's keenest backers.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told CNN in an interview broadcast on Sunday that Bashar will be ousted "sooner or later" by his own people.

"You can never remain in power through cruelty. You can never stand before the will of the people," Erdogan said.

Activists said a surgeon, Hassan Eid, was assassinated in Homs on Sunday. The official Syrian news agency said Eid was killed by "an armed terrorist group."

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Syrian opposition stage meeting

The meeting was drawn from members of Syria's established opposition

  More than 2,000 people are thought to have died since the anti-government protests began More than 200 Syrian opposition figures have met near Damascus in an effort to unite anti-government groups. The meeting, held at a private farm outside the capital, follows months of protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.
No arrests were made, although the opposition figures who attended were monitored by security officials.
Saturday's meeting comes two days after opposition parties in exile formed the Syrian National Council in Turkey.
Dr Samir Aita, an opposition figure living abroad who attended the Damascus meeting, said the event was significant.
"The importance of this meeting lies in the fact that it is happening in Damascus, on Syrian soil, in support of the protesters despite all the security difficulties," he said.
Inspired by anti-government protests in Tunisia and Egypt, the opposition movement began more than five months ago as a series of protests against Syria's authorities.
A violent crackdown by security forces has since left more than 2,200 people dead, according to the UN.
The government says hundreds of its personnel have been killed.
Most of the people who attended the opposition meeting were drawn from Syria's established opposition - who have spent years of their life in prison, says the BBC's Lina Sinjab in Damascus.
Representatives of the protesters did not attend, fearing arrest, but they supported the meeting and their demands were read out, she adds.
One activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, denied any involvement with the conference and said it could only form an alliance or coalition with the traditional opposition once the government had been toppled.
The opposition asked for no international intervention, no sectarianism and no violence.
Embryonic assembly
At Thursday's meeting in Istanbul, members of Syria's opposition groups chose 140 people to form a "national council".
Its aim is to organise and give a public face to protests against Mr Assad.
It will also co-ordinate the opposition's policies against the Syrian leadership.
Half of those selected are in Syria, with the remainder drawn from opposition figures in Syria's disapora.
There have been earlier attempts to unite the country's opposition under one banner, but this attempt is being cast as having the full backing of all opposition groups, in effect an embryonic Syrian national assembly.
Speaking on Thursday, an opposition spokeswoman, Basma Qadmani, said: "After completing the first level of consultative meetings, groups of revolutionary youth, political movements and personalities, activists and technocrats decided to found the Syrian National Council."
Yasser Tabbara, another member of the council, said it had not yet elected a president.
"We are in a democratic process. This is an inaugural meeting," he told the AFP news agency.

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