Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad on Monday strongly denounced the the Israeli killing of Palestinian leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, stressing that it is Israel which practices top of terror.
"Israel’s assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is an ugly crime that comes as part of a series of acts of killing and destruction perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people. It leads to a dangerous escalation of the situation." A Syrian official spokesman said whatever excuses proclaimed by the government of Sharon, the policy of killing and destruction pursued by it, including its embodiment of a flagrant violation of the international law, is a policy that should be denounced by the international community with all its political and humanitarian bodies and an end should be put to it.
He added that the premeditated killing of a Palestinian handicapped political leader was the top of Israel’s continued practices of terror targeting Palestinian civilians and disarmed people suffering under the Israeli occupation, noting that this was done with all "brutal force of Israel that challenged all international laws and heaven faiths."
Meanwhile, the Lebanese group Hizbullah fired anti-tank rockets and mortar shells at three Israeli outposts on the Shebaa Farms area on the Lebanese border Monday, hours after the assassination of Yassin.
The Israeli army said Israeli aircraft bombed Hizbullah outposts in response, and that its artillery batteries returned fire. No injuries have been reported.
Earlier Monday, Hizbullah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Israel would pay the highest price yet for the assassination of Yassin.
"The Zionists will discover soon that they have committed a very big folly, to add to their series of previous follies," Nasrallah said in a live appearance on the group's al-Manar TV.
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
