Hof to be named new US ambassador to Syria

Damascus: Frederic C. Hof, who currently serves on the National Advisory Committee of the Middle East Policy Council, will be the new US ambassador to Syria, according to sources here.

His appointment to a post that has been vacant since 2005 signals a new page in Syrian-US relations, which are expected to improve under President Barack Obama.

The new US leader has repeatedly signalled a willingness to engage with Syria to bring about regional peace, words that have been echoed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton since mid-January.

The US withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in 2005, after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Harriri. During a visit to Syria in December, former US president Jimmy Carter said that a new ambassador would be appointed once Obama began his term of office.

Hof is the former director of Jerusalem field operations for the Sharm Al Shaikh fact-finding committee headed by then-senate majority leader George Mitchell.

In 1983, as an officer in the US Army, he drafted a report investigating the October bombing of US Marines at Beirut International Airport.

In the 1960s, he served in Vietnam, and then as a Middle East foreign area officer, studying Arabic in Tunisia, before becoming army attaché in Beirut, and then working in the Office of the Secretary of Defence as a specialist on Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestinian Affairs.

In 1990-1993, he served as a mediator on water rights issues between Jordan and Israel. He has written extensively on Middle East affairs, one of the most influential being Beyond the Boundary: Lebanon, Israel and the Challenge of Change.

Factfile:

- Frederic C. Hof is the former director of Jerusalem field operations for the Sharm Al Shaikh fact-finding committee.

- In 1983, as an officer in the US Army, he drafted a report investigating the October bombing of US Marines at Beirut International Airport. n In the 1960s, he served in Vietnam.

- In 1990-1993, he served as a mediator on water rights issues between Jordan and Israel.