U.S. pulls envoy from Syria over safety concerns

The United States has temporarily pulled its ambassador out of Syria as a “result of credible threats against his personal safety,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday, accusing Syria of “incitement” against Ambassador Robert Ford.

“At this point, we can’t say when he will return to Syria,” Toner said in a statement.

Ford was attacked by a pro-government “armed mob” last month, a United States official told CNN at the time. The official is not authorized to speak to the media and asked not to be named.

Ford, who has been outspoken against the Syrian government’s use of violence against protesters, is seen by Syrian government supporters as an activist more than a diplomat.

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Ford sparked a diplomatic firestorm in July when he traveled to the restive city of Hama to express support for demonstrators. He was welcomed with flowers by local residents who had suffered a brutal crackdown by government forces. President Bashar al-Assad’s government called the trip an attempt to foment dissent.

A crowd tried to assault Ford and embassy colleagues September 29 “as they went about doing the normal work of any embassy,” State Department spokesman Toner said at the time.

“The mob was violent; it tried, unsuccessfully, to attack embassy personnel while they were inside several embassy vehicles, seriously damaging the vehicles in the process,” Toner said.

Syrian security officers helped secure a path back to the U.S. Embassy for the ambassador and his staff.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned we she described as “an unwarranted attack” when Ford and his aides were conducting “normal embassy business.”

Ford was confirmed as ambassador to Syria in April after five years during which Washington did not have an envoy in Damascus.

Relations between Syria and the United States have been tense in recent months as Syria clamped down on demonstrations against Assad. At least 3,000 people have died, the United Nations and other international observers estimate.

Earlier this month, a Syrian man was arrested in the United States, accused of spying on Syrians demonstrating in the United States. Syria rejected the indictment’s claim that Mohamad Anas Heitham Soueid worked for Syria’s intelligence agency, the Mukhabarat.

And it described as “ludicrous” the indictment’s assertion that Soueid, a Syrian-born American citizen, had met privately with Assad.

CNN