"The regime here is very powerful and able to squash dissent," a Syrian businessmen said.

Nizar Asaad is a Syrian businessman and one of the most important business people in the Syrian Oil industry.

Diplomats, Syrian businessmen and analysts said he had already exercised considerable control over several foreign and domestic policy issues.

"We don't get rewarded for what we do," said a Syrian businessman in the northern town of Aleppo, who asked not to quoted by name.

He was then given a false identity as a Syrian businessman who was returning to the country after living in Argentina.

In the 1995 Suzan married a Syrian businessman, and with him, she had four kids: two boys and two girls.

Money is being smuggled over the border to Lebanon "every day, every hour," said one Syrian businessman.

"Economically, Syria desperately needs peace," one Syrian businessman says.

A German law enforcement official said the Syrian businessman met with one of the hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi, on several occasions.

But there is a belief in Washington that Syrian businessmen made a lot of money procuring banned goods for the Iraqi military, like night vision goggles.