Saudi Gazette report

JEDDAH — Emad Al-Haraki, who was the army recruitment officer at the Syrian Consulate in Jeddah until his defection last year, has claimed that he received death threats from a Syrian diplomat formerly based in the Kingdom, Al-Hayat newspaper reported on Sunday.



Al-Haraki had tipped off Saudi authorities about a plot hatched by three diplomats at the Syrian consulate in Jeddah to blow up some installations, including gas stations, in Makkah at the peak of last year’s Haj. The three diplomats were subsequently expelled from the Kingdom last October.



Al-Haraki said the Syrian regime had assigned Shawqi Al-Shammat, a deputy consul at the Syrian consulate, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Al-Fashtaki, a senior security official, and Ali Qodsiyah, an intelligence officer, to carry out the terrorist plot.



According to Al-Haraki, Al-Shammat made a threatening telephone call to one of his (Al-Haraki’s) cousins in Switzerland and asked for a denial about Al-Shammat’s role in the Makkah plot.



He said Damascus was also planning to assassinate key political and religious figures in the Kingdom and blame it on Shiite dissidents with the aim of fuelling sectarianism in the country.



“The consulate was turned into an intelligence den and was dispatching information day and night to carry out the plot,” Al-Haraki said.



Maj. Gen. Al-Fashtaki was tasked to carry out the plot to assassinate Adnan Aroor and other Syrian scholars living in the Kingdom and Saudi scholar Dr. Muhammad Al-Oraifi, Al-Haraki said.



He said they planned to put poison in Aroor’s coffee but the conspiracy fell through because Aroor had tightened his security after a tip-off.

 

They had also plans to assassinate Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the Chief of Saudi Intelligence.



“An Alawite Syrian runs the consulate right now and this man has a brother in the rank of colonel working for (Syrian general and brother of President Bashar Al-Assad) Maher Al-Assad’s office,” Al-Haraki said.

 

“Scores of Syrian diplomats working for the consulate want to defect but they are frightened that the Syrian regime will take revenge on their families back home,” he said.