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TITLE: Syria, Hezbollah Warn of Coming Retaliation for Radar Base Attack |
AUTHOR: Daniel Sobelman |
PUB: Ha'aretz |
DATE: April 29, 2001 |
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Top Syrian officials and Hezbollah leaders warned over the weekend that responses to Israel's bombing of the Syrian radar base in Lebanon two weeks ago are certain to come. Mohammad Raad, the head of the Hezbollah faction in the Lebanese parliament declared that a Hezbollah response is "just a question of time." Raad added that Israel will not be able to "dictate its will to the Lebanese by resorting to aggression, and an escalation [of violence]." The purpose of the Israel Air Force attack against the Syrian facility, Ra'ad said, was to "create a new balance of power" - but Hezbollah retains the ability to "tip this balance in its favor." The question of which side has the edge depends upon "the response which Israel is forced to absorb," he said. Speaking in Damascus on Saturday, Syria's Foreign Minister Farouk Shara said that his country would pick its own time to retaliate to the Israeli raid. "We had announced that Syria would reserve its right to retaliate at the appropriate time," Shara said. "This means two things: That when Syria retaliates it would not violate any international or private laws; secondly that when it retaliates it will choose the appropriate time by itself." Shara spoke at a press conference held jointly with his French counterpart, Hubert Vedrine. Syria's media has indicated in recent days that the leadership in Damascus intends to respond to the air force attack. A columnist in the Damascus-based Al-Thawra stated last week that "Syria is preparing a strategic response to Israel's air attack." Meanwhile, Israeli strategists have joined the heightened war of rhetoric regarding Israel, Lebanon and Israel. In a strategic paper entitled "An Agenda for the New Government," the director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Prof. Shai Feldman, suggests that Israel ought to consider striking targets within Syrian territory in retaliation for any future Hezbollah attack inside Israel. In the paper, Feldman wrote that: "should Hezbollah escalate affairs by unleashing acts of terror along the northern border...[Israel] should consider a direct response against Syria." Recommending that such steps against Syria be taken in a "gradual" fashion, Feldman wrote that they would transfer the confrontation from the northern border, "where Israel is clearly in an inferior position," to "a theater of military confrontation between Syria and Israel, in which Israel has a clear advantage." With signs of tension mounting along the Israeli-Lebanon border, the United Nations has clarified that its peacekeeping force is not pulling out of southern Lebanon. The spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Timor Goksel, said that the UN isn't considering withdrawing its unit in response to the Lebanese government's refusal to deploy its army in Southern Lebanon. Goksel told Ha'aretz that UNIFIL doesn't plan on reducing its current force of 4,500 soldiers. His clarifications come in response to media reports suggesting that Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN Special Envoy to the Middle East, recently warned the Syrian leadership about the possibility of a UNIFIL pull-out. On Friday, Hezbollah announced that one of its fighters, 23-year-old Ahmad Hasin Akil, was killed "while fulfilling his duty of jihad. END |