Netanyahu Rues His Foreign Minister’s Disclosure of Meeting with Libyan Counterpart

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen talks to the media during a press conference after a meeting with his Cyprus' counterpart Constantinos Kombos and Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias at the Presidential palace in capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on March 31, 2023. (AP)
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen talks to the media during a press conference after a meeting with his Cyprus' counterpart Constantinos Kombos and Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias at the Presidential palace in capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on March 31, 2023. (AP)
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Netanyahu Rues His Foreign Minister’s Disclosure of Meeting with Libyan Counterpart

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen talks to the media during a press conference after a meeting with his Cyprus' counterpart Constantinos Kombos and Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias at the Presidential palace in capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on March 31, 2023. (AP)
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen talks to the media during a press conference after a meeting with his Cyprus' counterpart Constantinos Kombos and Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias at the Presidential palace in capital Nicosia, Cyprus, on March 31, 2023. (AP)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday appeared to shift blame to his top diplomat for the disclosure of a secret meeting with the Libyan foreign minister that has caused a backlash in Tripoli.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen's office on Aug. 26 went public with his having met Najla al-Mangoush, his Libyan counterpart, in Italy earlier in the month. The statement came on the heels of an Israeli media report about the meeting.

The news triggered protests in Libya, which does not recognize Israel and where pro-Palestinian sentiment is strong, and led head of the Government of National Unity (GNU) Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah to fire Mangoush.

"It is not helpful, now that's clear," Netanyahu told Cypriot TV station ANT1 when asked about the publication.

"I've issued a directive to all our government ministers that such meetings of this kind have to be cleared in advance with my office, and certainly their publication has to be cleared in advance with my office."

In an Aug. 28 social media post pushing back against the furor, Cohen defended his ministry for "always working in overt and covert channels, and in a range of discreet means, to bolster Israel's foreign relations".



Syria: Elaborate Military Tunnel Complex Linked to Assad's Palace

A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration carries the decapitated head of an equestrian statue of Bassel al-Assad, brother of toppled president Bashar al-Assad, removed from the abandoned Republican Guard base on Mount Qasyun. Bakr ALKASEM / AFP
A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration carries the decapitated head of an equestrian statue of Bassel al-Assad, brother of toppled president Bashar al-Assad, removed from the abandoned Republican Guard base on Mount Qasyun. Bakr ALKASEM / AFP
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Syria: Elaborate Military Tunnel Complex Linked to Assad's Palace

A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration carries the decapitated head of an equestrian statue of Bassel al-Assad, brother of toppled president Bashar al-Assad, removed from the abandoned Republican Guard base on Mount Qasyun. Bakr ALKASEM / AFP
A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration carries the decapitated head of an equestrian statue of Bassel al-Assad, brother of toppled president Bashar al-Assad, removed from the abandoned Republican Guard base on Mount Qasyun. Bakr ALKASEM / AFP

On the slopes of Mount Qasyun which overlooks Damascus, a network of tunnels links a military complex, tasked with defending the Syrian capital, to the presidential palace facing it.
The tunnels, seen by an AFP correspondent, are among secrets of president Bashar al-Assad's rule exposed since the opposition toppled him on December 8.

"We entered this enormous barracks of the Republican Guard after the liberation" of Damascus sent Assad fleeing to Moscow, said Mohammad Abu Salim, a military official from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the dominant group in the alliance that overthrew Assad.

"We found a vast network of tunnels which lead to the presidential palace" on a neighboring hill, Salim said.

During Assad's rule, Qasyun was off limits to the people of Damascus because it was an ideal location for snipers -- the great view includes the presidential palaces and other government buildings.

It was also from this mountain that artillery units for years pounded opposition-held areas at the gates of the capital.

An AFP correspondent entered the Guard complex of two bunkers containing vast rooms reserved for its soldiers. The bunkers were equipped with telecommunications gear, electricity, a ventilation system and weapons supplies.

Other simpler tunnels were dug out of the rock to hold ammunition.

Despite such elaborate facilities, Syria's army collapsed, with troops abandoning tanks and other gear as opposition fighters advanced from their northern stronghold to the capital in less than two weeks,.

On the grounds of the Guard complex a statue of the president's brother Bassel al-Assad, atop a horse, has been toppled and Bassel's head severed.

Bassel al-Assad died in a 1994 road accident. He had been the presumed successor to his father Hafez al-Assad who set up the paranoid, secretive, repressive system of government that Bashar inherited when his father died in 2000.

In the immense Guard camp now, former opposition fighters use pictures of Bashar al-Assad and his father for target practice.

Tanks and heavy weapons still sit under arched stone shelters.

Resembling a macabre outdoor art installation, large empty rusted barrels with attached fins pointing skyward are lined up on the ground, their explosives further away.

"The regime used these barrels to bomb civilians in the north of Syria," Abu Salim said.

The United Nations denounced Bashar's use of such weapons dropped from helicopters or airplanes against civilian areas held by Assad's opponents during Syria's years-long civil war that began in 2011.