Syria

An intriguing item about the mysterious leader of a ferocious militant group floated around the Lebanese and Syrian media over the weekend. According to a report in the Arab-language Syrian newspaper Al Liwaa, the leader of the Al Qaeda-linked militant group Fatah al Islam was captured two months ago in Syria. The report says that Shaker Abbsi, a former Libyan air force pilot turned Islamist, was caught in the poor Meliha district of south Damascus and hauled off to prison.

U.S. commandos crossing into Syria in an unprecedented raid this weekend killed a senior Al Qaeda associate accused of funneling fighters, weapons and cash to the insurgency in Iraq, U.S. officials familiar with the operation said Monday. Abu Ghadiyah, the chief of a Syrian smuggling network who was killed in the controversial operation Sunday, was "one of the most prominent, if not the most prominent, facilitators of foreign fighters going into Iraq for Al Qaeda," a senior U.S. official said.

The Iraqi government Tuesday condemned a U.S. helicopter assault inside Syria over the weekend as Damascus shut down an American school and cultural center in reaction to the raid. As the Iraqi government voiced displeasure over the American assault, the Cabinet also approved changes to a proposed U.S.-Iraq security agreement that would allow U.S. forces to stay in Iraq through the end of 2011.

Syria threatened to cut off security cooperation along the Iraqi border if there are more American raids on Syrian territory, and the U.S. Embassy in Damascus announced it would be closed today because of a mass rally called to protest a deadly weekend commando attack. Thousands were expected to participate in the government-sanctioned protest. In Washington, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Syria formally notified the U.S. that a cultural center should shut down immediately and an American school by Nov. 6.

An American school in Damascus closed and told students to go home after the Syrian government ordered it shut in response to a deadly raid last month from across the Iraqi border. Students and teachers were seen leaving the Damascus Community School, which had catered to a small American community and other foreign residents. A cultural center was also ordered shut. The closure order came two days after Syria said U.S. troops in four helicopters attacked a building inside Syria.

Samples taken from a Syrian site bombed by Israel on suspicion it was a covert nuclear reactor contain traces of uranium combined with other elements that merit further investigation, diplomats said Monday. The diplomats -- who demanded anonymity because their information was confidential -- said the uranium was processed and not in raw form, suggesting some kind of nuclear link.

An investigation into a remote Syrian site bombed by Israel 14 months ago has provided no conclusive answers so far, but sparked speculation about the source of trace amounts of radioactive material found at the site. A report published Wednesday by the International Atomic Energy Agency said satellite imagery from the location near Dair Alzour suggested that the construction site "appears to have been similar" to the layout of a nuclear reactor.

The International Atomic Energy Agency chief clashed with some Western nations who wanted to block aid for a planned Syrian nuclear power plant, saying intelligence pointing to a secret effort to produce plutonium was unproven. Mohamed ElBaradei said Syria was innocent until proved guilty. China, Russia and other nations rejected the Western challenge as political interference.

Uranium particles: A Nov. 20 Section A article about International Atomic Energy Agency reports on Syria and Iran misattributed an explanation for the presence of uranium particles in Syria to the IAEA. The explanation that the modified uranium particles must have been "contained in the missiles dropped from the Israeli planes" was from a Syrian government letter that was quoted by the report.

Lebanon chose its first ambassador to Syria, the latest step toward normalizing relations since the neighboring countries agreed this year to establish diplomatic ties. Information Minister Tarek Mitri made the announcement after the Cabinet approved the nominee. He told reporters the government would not disclose the ambassador's name until Syria had approved the choice. Lebanese TV stations, however, reported that the position will go to Michel Khoury, Lebanon's ambassador to Cyprus.