Hamas scaling back presence in Syria

Dozens of members of the Hamas terror group have quietly returned to Gaza from Damascus, as the group scales back its presence in Syria, diplomats told the Reuters news agency on Sunday. While Hamas’ leaders are denying they plan to quit the Syrian capital, where the group keeps its main headquarters outside Gaza, diplomats and regional sources told Reuters the Hamas delegation in Damascus, which once numbered hundreds, has shrunk to a few dozen. Hamas' move comes despite intense Iranian pressure on the organisation to refrain from relocating. The sources said the departures were speeded up by the Arab League’s recent suspension of Syria over its military crackdown on anti-regime protesters, adding that dozens of Hamas operatives and their families, who had lived in Syria since the 1990s, and others who moved there in recent years have returned to Gaza via Egypt in recent weeks. A Syrian opposition spokesman said recently that once Assad is toppled, his successors will have no intention of preserving the strategic alliance between Damascus, Tehran and Hezbollah. According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz's Palestinian sources, only "second and third-ranking" Hamas activists are leaving Damascus, while senior members of the organization's political wing, headed by Khaled Meshaal, are remaining in the Syrian capital. The Hamas activists on the move, the sources say, are those responsible for the activities and funding of the organisation's military wing, as well as some members of the political leadership. Most have left together with their families to a number of destinations, including Gaza, Sudan, Qatar and Lebanon. While Hamas would keep a skeletal presence in Syria to “book a seat in a post-Assad era”, according to one diplomat, “Meanwhile, Hamas officials are on planes most of the time, bolstering ties with other countries like Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Sudan, or in contact to explore new bases and not a sole base.” The diplomat added, “Hamas will pull out of Syria in the right time but not for good.” Reports surfaced last May that Hamas is moving its headquarters from Damascus to Egypt and the terror group is strengthening itself in the Sinai. Some reports claimed that the Damascus-based Hamas leadership left Syria after the Syrian government asked the Hamas leaders to leave. Efforts on the part of the Syrian and Iranian regimes to ascertain whether Hamas is indeed fleeing Damascus have been met with denials from the organisation's leadership. "Hamas has not made any new decision, and there has certainly not been a decision to leave Syria," a member of Hamas' political bureau, Salah Al-Arouri, told Haaretz, adding that if a family or two had left Syria, they had probably done so for personal reasons. "The organisation's top officials are here in Damascus; our relations with the state and Syrian people are excellent," Al-Arouri said. "We respect all Syrians whomever they are. We have no intention of interfering in Syria's internal affairs." Nevertheless, in recent days, a number of Hamas officials, particularly among the leadership in Gaza, have called explicitly for the organization to distance itself from Damascus in light of the ongoing violence and bloodshed in Syria and the severe harm suffered by the country's civilians. Haaretz has learned that Hamas has made a decision to abandon Damascus without letting the Syrian authorities know. The decision was made by the organisation's senior leadership in the wake of the harsh criticism voiced against top Hamas officials in Gaza and abroad because of their ties with the Syrian regime. This criticism, coupled with the ongoing violent suppression of the demonstrations in Syria and the reported killing there of more than 4,000 people, intensified the dilemma facing the Hamas leadership - to continue to stand by its Syrian patron, or to abandon the Syrian capital and thus make it clear that Hamas, considered a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, is distancing itself from Assad. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri denied on Sunday that the group is leaving Syria, saying that “there is no change” when asked by Reuters about Hamas presence in Damascus. In September, however, Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Al-Zahar announced that the terror movement may relocate its headquarters from Damascus to Cairo. Hamas angered Syria in recent months by refusing to hold rallies in Palestinian Authority Arab refugee camps in support of Bashar Assad’s government, Reuters noted. Tensions with Damascus rose further, the report added, when Hamas opted not to sign a statement by nine other PA-based groups, including the Palestine Liberation Organisation, in support of the Syrian leader. Iran in the meantime applied intense pressure to Hamas in an effort to persuade it not to leave Damascus, threatening even to cut off funds to the organisation if it did so, Palestinian sources have told Israel's Haaretz newspaper. The Iranian pressure also included an unprecedented ultimatum - namely, an explicit threat to stop supplying Hamas with arms and suspend the training of its military activists. The Arab League's decision to suspend Syria from membership of the organisation and impose economic sanctions on Damascus tipped the scales, with Hamas finally deciding to covertly evacuate all its activists from Syria and leave behind only the organization's highest-ranking officials so as to preserve a low profile of activity there. Among the Hamas officials who are still coming and going from Damascus are Mousa Abu Marzouq (Meshal's deputy ), Izzat al-Rishq, Al-Arouri and Meshaal himself.