The U.S. Helsinki Commission chaired by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kans., said that "Russia has agreed to provide Syria with an unspecified number of...surface to air missiles...despite objections from the U.S. and Russia's commitments as a participating state of the (Helsinki Agreement) not to support terrorist regimes.

"For years Russia and Syria have had what Russian President Putin recently termed a 'special relationship,'" said Brownback.

The U.S. Helsinki Commission is an independent government agency charged to monitor compliance with the Helsinki Agreement, a politically binding cooperative security pact signed by 55 member nations, including Russia, to ensure disarmament and military transparency in and around Europe.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in mid-February that Moscow was negotiating the sale of an undisclosed amount of Igla SA-18 low-altitude surface-to-air missiles with Syria, angering U.S. and Israeli officials who insist they could be funneled by Syria to rogue terror groups. Many observers are concerned that these weapons will reinforce Hezbollah militants.

"Warming relations between Moscow and Damascus are expected to lead to a series of arms deals for Syria and further transfers to Hezbollah and others," Brownback said, adding, "The Lebanese people...have suffered under Syria's long history of supporting insurgencies and terrorist organizations."

Russia agreed to upgrade Syria's dated missile technologies just two days after the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut, an attack for which many hold S yria responsible.

Syrian President Bashar Assad defended his country's right to buy arms from Russia during a January visit to Moscow, saying they were air defense weapons. Assad held that Syria would continue its "traditional" cooperation in weapons trade with Russia. As a supplement to the proposed deal, Russia agreed to cancel nearly three-quarters of Syria's $13.4 billion debt to bolster military ties.

Addressing the reach of Syria's influence, the Republican senator from Kansas cited Tuesday's massive pro-Syria demonstration in Beirut as a reminder of vast and entrenched interests in Lebanon to "prolong Syria's domination."

He said the event underscored the necessity that Syria fully comply with U.N. Resolution 1559, which calls for foreign troops to leave Lebanon and for Lebanese sovereignty to be respected.

Walid Phares, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, reit erated in his testimony that "terrorist" groups like Hezbollah operating in the region continue to be indirectly strengthened by Russian arms sold to Syria, in breach of the Helsinki Act that prohibits active or "passive support" of terrorist acts in another state.

"Russian military supplies are the foundation upon which the Syrian state is built," he said. "Small arms, in particular, have ended up in the hands of the various Syrian-aligned terrorist groups that have plagued the Middle East," he continued, adding that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups are headquartered in Damascus.

Phares noted that large stocks of arms given to Hezbollah by Syria contain quantities of Russian made weapons and others of Russian made origin made under license abroad.

"Russia appears to place no conditions on the use of arms that it supplies to foreign governments...and appears to show no interest in the fact that its weap ons have become killing instruments of choice by terrorists and insurgents around the world," he said.

Farid Ghadry, President of the Reform Party of Syria, an opposition group, said that Russia's sale of shoulder-held missiles to Syria would "dramatically raise the stakes in the Middle East."

"The SA-18 is capable of downing and aircraft flying up to 900 miles an hour...one can only imagine the possibilities if these weapons fall into the wrong hands."

According to Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, Syria has already betrayed dubious intentions by actively feeding violence in neighboring Iraq through backdoor support of insurgents.

He recounted an interview with a Syrian intelligence officer captured February in Iraq, who detailed how he had received weapons and explosives from Syrian intelligence to sabotage last month's open election.

"Syria is the logis tical, financial and training base for the terrorists in Iraq," he declared, before recommending the U.S. list Assad's Baath Party as a terrorist organization.

During questioning, Sen. Brownback asked Steve Emerson, Executive Director of the Investigative Project, an anti-terror think tank, as to why Russia would maintain its military and economic dealings with Syria in light of widespread accusations that it backs terrorist activity.

Emerson responded that end of the Cold War did nothing to dampen a long-standing partnership between Russia and Syria.

"(Russia) has sought increasingly to basically play a countervailing weight to the United States in almost a replication of the Cold War strategy...it receives cash (and) support in exchange," he said.

Emerson further held that "Putin is trying to slap the United States in the face more aggressively than he has in the past, resenting...what he calls U.S. intervention, particularly in the Ukraine elections."

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