WASHINGTON, Oct 23: The US will ask the UN Security Council on Tuesday to urge Syria to hand over suspects in the Hariri assassination investigation, officials in Washington told reporters.

According to these officials, the US will seek a Security Council vote on measures suggested in the UN report for bringing the suspects to trial. The Bush administration is also likely to propose sanctions if Syria fails to comply.

President George Bush wants foreign ministers of America’s all Arab allies to participate in the Security Council debate and is willing to delay the meeting to ensure their participation, reports in the US media said.

Mr Bush told reporters on Friday that he has asked his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to contact the UNSC for further action on the UN report which claims that several senior Syrian officials participated in the plot to kill former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Syria has strongly rejected the report, made public on Friday, as based on “hearsay” aimed at facilitating the US goals in the Middle East, which include destabilizing the Syrian government.

Soon after the report was published, the Bush administration launched a major diplomatic effort to encourage the international community to demand action against Syria over its alleged involvement in Mr Hariri’s assassination. Syria strongly denies any involvement and blames anti-Syrian elements in Lebanon and the US administration for implicating it.

The US also has contacted several friendly Arab states to back its move for seeking a UN action against Syria and wants them to send their foreign ministers to New York next week to participate in the Security Council debate on this issue.

The United States has already secured the support of Britain and France in the expected vote in the Security Council and Washington is now trying to persuade Moscow and Beijing to support its move as well.

The US has initiated a bill to require Syria to fully cooperate with the international community in the investigation, and to turn in the high ranking Syrian officials allegedly involved in planning the assassination, including President Bashar Assad’s brother, Maher, the president’s brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, and Syrian intelligence officials.

If Damascus refuses to comply with the demands, Washington would then move to impose severe sanctions against the Arab state and hopes that the European Union will also back the sanctions.

Meanwhile, State Department officials told Washington Post that the Bush administration is brokering a series of steps designed to unravel the regime in Syria but not oust the government of President Bashar Assad —- at least not yet. Instead, the administration wants to make President Bashar al-Assad cooperate with Washington through the kind of pressure that turned Moammar Qaddafi after Libyan agents were linked to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the officials said.

According to these officials, the long-term US goal is to break the 35-year hold of the Assad family and to force it to share power with others.

Short term, the US administration somewhat is opting to let the UN investigation erode President Assad’s power — and see if he changes his ways, officials said.

In specific terms, that includes closing the Damascus airport and border routes for extremists bound for Iraq, terminating ties with Palestinian groups that reject peace with Israel, stopping the flow of arms to Lebanese militants, and developing good relations with the new Baghdad government, State Department officials said.

The officials said that Syria has few democratic exile groups, and the strongest internal opposition is the Muslim Brotherhood.