Top Syrian general assassinated, why?

Mohammed Sleiman, said to be "Syria's liaison officer with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement",  the head of security at the presidential palace in Damascus and President Bashar al-Assad's "right-hand man.", --  was killed [assassinated] by a sniper in the northwest Syrian town of Tartus.  (AFP)  hat tip Michael

What is REALLY interesting is that "Israeli media said Suleiman was a key figure in an alleged nuclear program that the United States accused Syria of pursuing after Israel raided a site in eastern Syria last year."  Of course, Syria denied it was building an illegal nuclear facility.  (Reuters)

DEBKAfile's intelligence sources report that Gen. Muhammad Suleiman, whom a sniper shot dead in the Syrian port town of Tartus early Saturday, Aug. 2, was a shadowy figure who acted for Bashar Assad in the regime's four most sensitive and confidential spheres:

1. He was the president's liaison man with the North Korean government. On his frequent trips to Pyongyang, Gen. Suleiman organized the consignment of components for the plutonium reactor in northern Syria, which Israeli demolished last September, and the security of the North Korean scientists and technicians who accompanied them.

A Syrian opposition Web site said Suleiman, a confidant of President Bashar al-Assad, had beenshot in the head in his seaside villa. Another site said the shots had been fired by a sniper from a boat. 

...  Suleiman was also involved in efforts to upgrade Syria's military readiness  (Reuters)

Other terror news:

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Comments

[MK]

If i didn't have to work tomorrow, i'd be drinking to his demise now. Thanks to whoever did that for doing us all a favor.

Let's hope this is the sort of quiet diplomacy that Ahmadinejad wasn't expecting.

[PALADIN]

NO DOUBT IN MY MIND THAT THE ISRAELIS DECIDED TO X OUT THIS SYRIAN GENERAL. GOOD ON EM!!!!! AND HEY THE BOYS IN LANGLEY MAY HAVE Xed OUT ZAWARHIRI. I READ HE"S IN A LOT OF PAIN SINCE THE PREDATOR FLEW OVER HIS PLACE.

[EDGE]

Syria...what a great place to live...