WORLD IN BRIEF : ISRAEL : Love May Have Lured Syria Pilot Defector
From Times staff and wire reports
Israel’s secret service used a Druze woman to lure the Syrian air force pilot who defected to Israel last week with his Soviet-built MIG-23 fighter jet, the Lebanese newspaper Ad Diyar reported. The conservative daily, based in Christian East Beirut, said in an unsourced front-page report that the unidentified Druze woman confessed that she had been recruited by Israeli intelligence after learning that she had been having an affair with Syrian Maj. Adel Basem, 34.
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