315 As-Seyassah on Gemayel’s Assassination

Kuwait’s daily As-Seyassah, no friend to the Syrian government, has this priceless item. The paper cites an unnamed source who works at a pro-Syrian Lebanese newspaper as saying that an editor at Syria’s government news agency, SANA, called him at 3:05 p.m. on Tuesday to inquire about the details of Pierre Gemayel’s assassination… 55 minutes before it happened. Ten minutes later, As-Seyassah reports, the Syrian editor called back to apologize for the misunderstanding.

The Skeptic wonders: Is this a joke? If so, there are multiple punchlines. SANA, for its part, quotes Egypt’s official Al-Ahram and Al-Akhbar as blaming the Mossad for the assassination. One for the Department of a7a! and for the Rumors of Questionable Provenance Department…

[tags]Syria, Lebanon, Gemayel[/tags]

5 Comments »

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  1. This sounded very doubtful to me when I read about it – almost urban legend-like. Would Syria’s state security be as formidable as they are if they made such amateurish mistakes?

    Comment by SP — November 23, 2006 #

  2. As-Seyassah as a news source, and you call yourself a skeptic! This is hilarious!

    Ask any Kuwaiti about this “newspaper” before quoting its “priceless item”!!

    Comment by LOL — November 23, 2006 #

  3. LOL: priceless as in funny, as in lol.

    Yeah, SP, also sounded very doubtful to me. Why, for starters, would a pro-Syrian newspaper be talking to Seyassah’s reporters? Still funny, though.

    Comment by Administrator — November 24, 2006 #

  4. I caught the same thing earlier from the Mideast Youth blog. Their comment thread is as amused as yours, treating it as a rumor/urban legend.
    Wouldn’t it be interesting if…

    Comment by Hootsbuddy — November 27, 2006 #

  5. Elijah, do you know why, exactly, the Kuwaiti newspapers have such a burr up their ass regarding Syria? When I was in Beirut, all the March 14th folk read Kuwaiti newspapers with a passion, waiting for whatever they were going to write about Syria/the Hariri assassination next.

    Comment by Andrew Exum — November 27, 2006 #

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