He keeps everyone talking

DAMASCUS, Syria - As the body of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was flown by helicopter from Egypt to his West Bank burial place in November 2004, two men sat alongside the coffin.

One was Mahmoud Abbas, who went on to succeed Arafat as Palestinian Authority president. The other was Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian intelligence chief.

During the past decade, whenever there's a crisis between the Palestinians and Israel, Suleiman is bound to be on hand. When relations become so bad that they can no longer communicate directly, Suleiman is the most trusted intermediary.

As the impasse over the kidnapping of Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit escalates, Suleiman is once again at the forefront of mediation. He met Friday with Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas' political bureau, who lives in Damascus.

Many Israeli and Palestinian officials say Meshaal is the key to winning the soldier's release. And Suleiman is the highest-ranking mediator to have pleaded directly with Meshaal to resolve the standoff before Israel launches a full-scale assault on the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian militants are believed to be holding the young soldier.

"Suleiman has a long record of handling these sensitive negotiations," said Mohammad Salah, Cairo bureau chief of the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat. "He's the man who is most trusted by both the Israelis and Palestinians."

A key intermediary

Since the Palestinian uprising erupted in September 2000, Suleiman has shuttled tirelessly between Israel and the Palestinian territories. He is one of the few Arab officials who meets often with high-ranking members of the Mossad, the Israeli spy agency. Sometimes, his diplomacy takes him to Washington, where he has developed strong ties with the Bush administration.

Last year, after managing weeks of round-the-clock negotiations in Cairo among competing Palestinian factions, Suleiman secured a crucial cease-fire between the Palestinians and Israel. The truce held for more than a year, allowing Israeli troops to withdraw from Gaza in August with little incident.

"More than any other Arab official, Omar Suleiman understands how to deal with all the Palestinian and Israeli players," said an Arab diplomat in Damascus who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "He has managed the Palestinian portfolio for Egypt for so long, it's now his main job."

Suleiman, 70, is perhaps more suited to the world of espionage than shuttle diplomacy. He rarely gives media interviews and often looks uncomfortable in photos taken during his delicate negotiations.

A career military man, he holds the rank of lieutenant general. In 1993, he was named head of Egypt's General Intelligence Directorate, the equivalent of that country's CIA.

Born in southern Egypt, a poor and neglected region that has bred many Islamic militants, Suleiman took one of the few paths to social mobility: He joined the military. At 19, he enrolled at the Military Academy in Cairo and was later sent for advanced training in Moscow, Egypt's main ally at the time.

Notable save

He was an officer during the 1967 and 1973 Middle East wars and earned accolades from his superiors for his strategic planning. In the late 1980s, he was named director of military intelligence, where he began developing relationships with U.S. and Israeli officials.

Few Egyptians had heard of Suleiman until June 1995, when he was credited with saving the life of President Hosni Mubarak.

Over the objections of other Egyptian officials, Suleiman had insisted that Mubarak take his armored limousine to a summit of African leaders in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.

As Mubarak's motorcade left the airport, it was ambushed by a half-dozen gunmen firing AK-47s. The assassination attempt was carried out by members of Egypt's Gamaa Islamiya, a militant group that at the time was led by Ayman al-Zawahri.

After the incident, Suleiman became one of Mubarak's closest aides and was given the most sensitive political and security assignments. By the late 1990s, he was mentioned frequently as a leading successor to the ailing Mubarak. But since then, he has been overshadowed by the president's son, Gamal.

The elder Mubarak and Suleiman have been cultivating close relations with Syria since June 2000, when President Bashar Assad assumed power after his father's death. In fact, Mubarak and his intelligence chief made one of their first joint public appearances at the funeral of Hafez Assad in Damascus.

"Mubarak has a lot of influence over Bashar," said the Arab diplomat. "He has been one of Bashar's main allies even as the U.S. has tried to isolate Syria."

Hopes for soldier's release

Palestinian and Israeli officials hope that Mubarak - most likely through Suleiman - will persuade Assad to pressure the Hamas leaders in Syria to release the Israeli soldier.

The Syrian regime has allowed leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian groups that reject peace with Israel to operate from Damascus for two decades. In turn, Hamas' recent victory in Palestinian legislative elections strengthened Assad in his own confrontation with the United States.

Assad is convinced that Israeli leaders will not negotiate a return of the Golan Heights, captured in the 1967 Middle East war. That is why Assad sees little incentive to entirely cut his support to Palestinian militants and to Hezbollah, a guerrilla group that controls Lebanon's southern border with Israel.

Most major decisions within Hamas are made by its political bureau, which has eight to 10 members who mainly live in exile in Syria.

Israeli officials say Meshaal and other Syria-based officials are less willing to make concessions than the Hamas leaders inside the Palestinian territories.

That's why many have high hopes for the Egyptian spy chief.

"If anyone can bring the different factions of Hamas together with the Israelis, it's Omar Suleiman," Salah said.