Medhat Al-Saleh is believed to have been recruited by Iranian forces to plot terror activities along the Israeli border.
By Sharon Wrobel, The Algemeiner
Syrian official Medhat Al-Saleh was allegedly killed on Saturday by Israeli sniper fire, outside his home situated just a few hundred yards from the shared border between the two countries.
The former Israeli security prisoner is believed to have been recruited by Iranian forces to plot terrorist activities with Iranian senior officials along the border against Israel, according to a report by Israel’s Walla news.
Saleh, who spent 12 years in an Israeli prison on terrorism charges before being released in 1997, was allegedly assassinated in the town of Ein al-Tina, near the border with Israel along the slopes of Mount Hermon. The town is located across the border from Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights in which Saleh was born and raised, and where most of his family still lives.
“Saleh is known to us as a prominent activist. He may have worked to carry out a terrorist attack in collaboration with one of the Shiite axis units,” tweeted Maj. (res.) Tal Beeri, head of the research department at the Alma Center.
The former security prisoner’s proximity to Israel and his home’s short distance from Majdal Shams opened up the possibility of shooting and killing him using a sniper, Walla reported, citing unidentified sources.
Following his release from Israeli prison in the late 1990s, Saleh decided to cross the border and flee to Syria, where he continued his involvement in in anti-Israel terror activities while maintaining contact with the Druze community in Israel. A few years later, he was voted into the Syrian parliament representing Golan Heights affairs.
Over the years Saleh was reported to communicate with his family from the so-called shouting hill, where Syrian civilians stand and send shouting messages to the Israeli side, and which is located near a two-story house he built. According to sources cited by Walla, “whoever wanted to take him out didn’t need too many identifying details, as he was almost two meters tall and fat.”
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