Syrian President Gives Award to Child Killer

Newsweek Magazine: "The details of Kuntar's attack were so sickening they give pause even to some of Israel's enemies"... but not to Syrian President Assad apparently:
Kuntar is considered the perpetrator of one of the most brutal terrorist attacks in Middle East history: On April 22, 1979, at the age of 16, Samir Kuntar led a group of four PLF terrorists who entered Israel from Lebanon by boat.[3] The group members included Abdel Majeed Asslan (born in 1955), Mhanna Salim Al-Muayed (born in 1960) and Ahmed AlAbras (born in 1949). They all belonged to the PLF under the leadership of Abu Abbas. The group departed from the seashore of Tyre in Southern Lebanon using a 55 horse-powered motorized rubber boat with an 88 km/h speed. The goal of the operation was to attack Nahariya, 10 kilometers away from the Lebanese border. They named it "Operation Nasser".

Around midnight they arrived at the coastal town of Nahariya. The four killed a policeman, Eliyahu Shahar, who came across them. The group then entered a building on Jabotinsky Street where they formed two groups. One group broke into the apartment of the Haran family before police reinforcements had arrived. They took 31 year-old Danny Haran hostage along with his four year-old daughter, Einat. The mother, Smadar Haran, was able to hide in a crawl space above the bedroom with her two year-old daughter Yael, and a neighbor.

Witnesses said that Kuntar's group took Danny and Einat down to the beach, where a shootout with Israeli policemen and soldiers erupted. According to the witnesses, when Kuntar's group found that the rubber boat they'd arrived in was disabled by gunfire, Kuntar shot Danny at close range in the back, in front of his daughter, and drowned him in the sea to ensure he was dead. Next, eyewitnesses said he smashed the head of 4 year-old Einat on beach rocks and crushed her skull with the butt of his rifle, Smadar Haran accidentally suffocated Yael to death while attempting to quiet her whimpering, which would have revealed their hiding place,[16][17] from where she saw Danny and Einat being led away at gunpoint by Kuntar. A policeman and two of Kuntar's comrades were killed in the shootout on the beach; Kuntar and the fourth member of the group, Ahmed Assad Abras, were captured.