U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford got into his most serious scrape yet today when an
embassy delegation was attacked by a violent mob in Damascus.
"A crowd of demonstrators tried to assault Ambassador Ford and embassy
colleagues today as they went about doing the normal work of any embassy. In
this instance, they went to a meeting with a well-known Syrian political
figure," a State Department official confirmed to The Cable.
"The mob was violent; it tried,
unsuccessfully, to attack embassy personnel while they were inside several
embassy vehicles, and, while unsuccessful, it did seriously damage the
vehicles."
The official said that Syrian
security officers finally provided assistance by securing a path for the U.S.
delegation back to the embassy. Ford and embassy staff are now safely back at
the U.S. embassy.
BBC News reported that
Ford was visiting veteran politician Hassan
Abdul Azim. The AP reported that
the mob of over 100 thugs pelted Ford with eggs and tomatoes upon his arrival
at Azim's office, and that Ford and the staff were trapped inside for over
three hours before Syrian security forces finally escorted them to safety.
We're told that Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton will have a
statement on the incident later today.
This is Ford's third run-in
with violence in recent weeks. The Cable
first
reported that Ford was assaulted while standing outside a sit-in by lawyers
at the Syrian Bar Association on Aug. 23, when a man tried to wrap a giant
poster of President Bashar al-Assad
around him. Then on Sept. 11, Syrian forces attacked
a funeral of activist Giyath Matar shortly after Ford and seven
other ambassadors had left.
Ford's determined effort to
publicly show support for protesters is clearly angering the Assad regime, but
it is also convincing
his detractors in Washington that he should be confirmed as the permanent
ambassador in Syria. Until now, he has been serving under a recess appointment.
"When an ambassador makes a
statement in a country that's critical of that country's government, when that
government visits an opposition or a site where a protest is taking place, the
statement is much more powerful -- and the impact and the attention it gets is
much more powerful if it's an ambassador rather than a low-level
diplomat," Ford told The Cable in
an interview last week.
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