Rumsfeld stops Iraqi oil pipeline, Damascus for end to occupation, Sharon uses US threats against Syria

Israel yesterday assumed the leadership of the American threats against Damascus and even threatened to launch a military operation against Syria, calling on the US administration to intensify its pressures on the Syrian side until it yields to Israeli conditions including halting support for the Lebanese Hizbullah Party and the two Palestinian movements of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

As the Syrian government announced its rejection of the American threats and accusations, and considered them as responding to the Israeli provocation and a service for its ambitions," and also renewed its call to end the American occupation of Iraq, the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon described President Bashar al-Assad as very dangerous because he "underestimates Israel's power, the same he did with the Americans."

Meantime, the US Secretary of State Colin Powell linked between the issue of the mass destruction weapons in the region and the peace settlement which is supposed to target, following the Palestinians, each of Syria and Lebanon.

However, Powell said that the US has not a military plan or a list for countries like Syria and Iran it intends to attack after Iraq, noting that Iraq was a "special case."

Powell also repeated the American criticism and warning against Syria, which had reached its peak in the few past days, concentrating on accusing Damascus of harboring former Iraqi leaderships and demanding Damascus to reconsider its military programs and halting the mass destruction weapons programs and cutting its relations with parties accused by Washington of practicing terrorism.

On the other hand, the US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the oil pipeline between Syria and Iraq was closed. He added he can not confirm halting all operations of "illegal oil transport from Iraq to Syria was stopped." Rumsfeld added "we were informed that they ( the American forces) closed the pipelines.. is it the only pipeline and did that stop the flow of oil completely between Iraq and Syria.. This is something I can not tell you about.. I can not confirm to you that the illegal flow of oil from Iraq to Syria was totally stopped.. But I hope that was achieved."