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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/02/international/middleeast/02letter.html
Damascus Continues to Host Palestinian Terror Factions
(New York Times) Michael Slackman - Syrian officials have been saying for years that they have closed down all the offices of Palestinian factions working in Damascus, as the U.S. and the Europeans have insisted. They are all gone, they say: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. But last month, President Bashar al-Assad held a meeting of the leaders of all the factions. He called for unity among Palestinians and, according to people at the meeting, said he would remove some of the restrictions he had placed on their political work from Damascus. For decades, Syrian leaders have played a double game, assuring the world that the Palestinian offices were closed while letting them set up shop in "apartments."