There is disagreement in Syria about what the government knows about such supposed ties and what it is doing about it. One advisor to the foreign ministry called it "inconceivable" that the government would allow, let alone condone, support for the Iraqi insurgents. "Those people may go and fight, be trained, learn all kinds of things, and come back to make trouble," said Riad Daoudi, arguing that the insurgency in Iraq is not in Syria's interest.

A prominent human rights lawyer, Anwar Al Bounni, agreed -- up to a point. He said that the government was arresting fighters who returned from Iraq, but not because it wanted the American vision of a democratic Iraq to succeed. At the beginning of December he was visited in his office in Damascus by one man who had been held for four months after crossing back to Syria. He told Al Bounni that at least 50 former fighters were languishing in the same jail. The lawyer thought that there must be many more elsewhere, and said that the government has indeed clamped down on some of the people who were calling for a jihad in Iraq. In Hama, where fundamentalism is reviving after the elder Assad's massacre, 16 preachers who had called on their followers to go to Iraq were arrested in September, the lawyer said. This was done, he claimed, not because the authorities wanted to stop the flow of fighters but because they do not want such fighters to be "outside their control."

Al Bounni said the government has no interest in a stable Iraq. "They worry about Iraq being a really democratic and free country." This presumably would set a bad example for Syria's own population. Another analyst who has insight into the working of the government, slightly adjusted that picture. Syria may still play a "passive" role in allowing fighters and financial support to cross into Iraq, he said. But the government would be willing to stop that "in exchange for a role" in the affairs of its neighbor. He called it the Americans' greatest failure that they have not made such an offer until now.

Syria's relationship with the Palestinians may face a similar problem. Syria simply does not want to be the last country to make peace with Israel. Its negotiating position over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights would suffer if the Palestinians cut a deal first, which now seems possible, if only faintly. But both the Israeli government and the Bush administration have made clear that they are in no hurry to let Syria in on peace talks and thus evade international pressure over its other actions. In mid-December, Bush said, "Assad needs to wait: first peace between Israel and Palestine, and then we'll see what to do with Syria."

So Syria may once again revert to its "spoiler" role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The country hosts some of Palestinian militant groups' leaders and offices, and senior Palestinian leaders also say Damascus is trying to influence factions in the Palestinian territories. This is shaping up as a concern in the run-up to the elections on Jan. 9 for a new chairman of the Palestinian Authority to replace Yasser Arafat. The new Palestinian leadership is worried about the possibility that renewed fighting could disrupt the elections and scupper their plans to restore a measure of stability and even to restart negotiations with Israel. Over the last couple of weeks, fighting in Gaza between the militants and the army once again escalated after a period of relative calm in the wake of Arafat's death.

In Damascus, a veteran Palestinian leader, Naif Hawatmeh, earlier this month said that Syria indirectly supports some of the militant factions inside Fatah, the main PLO faction, through the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. "Everybody knows Syria and Iran support Hezbollah. Well, Hezbollah supports some of the groups in the Palestinian territories, not only the Islamic ones but also some inside Fatah such as the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades," said Hawatmeh, who is the leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and has been based in Damascus for decades.

Persistent Israeli claims to the same effect may have been exaggerated, but even Palestinian sources inside the West Bank, from all the important factions, agree that Hezbollah is involved, and Syria is blamed for instructing some factions to serve its own needs.

The Palestinian Islamic groups are also a concern for Mahmoud Abbas, the new PLO leader and the leading candidate in the Palestinian elections. He visited Damascus in December and met with the political leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal. A Hamas source said that the visit yielded little agreement and that the elections for the leadership of the Palestinian Authority were not even discussed. Meshaal rejected a Hamas cease-fire. After the meeting between Abbas and Meshaal, Hamas increased its attacks on Israeli targets in and around the Gaza strip.

At a press conference in Damascus -- after a meeting between President Assad and the Palestinian leadership, led by Abbas -- Syria's foreign minister, Farouk Shara'a, indicated where Syria's interests lay. He said that coordination between the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon over peace moves was a "demand" of all the Arab states. Abbas also said he wanted coordination but did not make any firm commitments.

Syria is trying hard to prove that it is needed in the regional equation, that it cannot be ignored. In Damascus, critics of the government agree that Assad's government, even though it is reaching out to the rest of the world, is up to its old tricks. Where they differ is on the question of whether the regime will be prepared to abandon its practices at a price, or whether it never will because its very survival is bound up with them.

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