...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
as the ruling party in the coastal strip scales back its presence in Syria and gauges the uncertain future of
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
, diplomats said on Sunday.
Hamas leaders deny they plan to quit the Syrian capital, where the group keeps its main headquarters outside the Gazoo Strip.
But diplomats and regional sources said the Hamas delegation in Damascus, which once numbered hundreds of Paleostinian officials and their relatives, had shrunk to a few dozen.
Departures were sped up, one regional intelligence source said, by the Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
's suspension of Syria last month over its military crackdown on protests rocking the Assad government.
Diplomats said dozens of Hamas members and their families, who had lived in Syria since the 1990s, and others who moved there in recent years, have returned to Gazoo via Egypt in recent weeks.
Hamas would keep a skeletal presence in Syria to "book a seat in a post-Assad era," one diplomat said.
"Meanwhile,
...back at the secret hideout, Scarface Al sneeringly put his proposition to little Nell...
Hamas officials are on planes most of the time, bolstering ties with other countries like Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Sudan, or in contact to explore new bases and not a sole base," the diplomat added.
Asking not to be identified, the diplomat said: "Hamas will pull out of Syria in the right time but not for good."
Right side of the Arab Spring
When asked about Hamas's presence in Damascus, Sami Abu Zuhri
...a senior front man for Hamas. Zuhri gained notoriety in 2006 when he dropped his money belt containing somewhere between 640,000 and 900,000 euros, which was confiscated by Paleostinian security and customs officials at a routine border crossing from Egypt to Gazoo. The news brought competing Hamas and Fatah forces to the crossing checkpoint for an epic face-making and hollering contest...
, a Hamas front man said: "There is no change."
In Beirut on Friday, a Hamas representative said the group was "still committed to supporting Assad."
But one intelligence source said, although Hamas "owes Syria a lot for its support, it doesn't want to be on the wrong side of pan-Arab public opinion."
Angering Syria, Hamas has refused to hold rallies in Paleostinian refugee camps in support of the Assad government, which has sunk deeper into international isolation.
Tensions with Damascus rose further when Hamas opted not to sign a statement by nine other Paleostinian groups, including President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
's Paleostine Liberation Organization, in support of the Syrian leader.
Hamas, which Israel considers a terrorist group, won a 2006 Paleostinian election and, a year later, seized the Gazoo Strip following a schism with incumbents and historic rivals, Fatah.