Hizbollah warns: We'll open new front on
Israel
By Damien McIlroy
(Filed:
12/10/2003)
Syrian-backed terrorists have vowed to escalate attacks on Israel from Lebanon, describing last Sunday's raid near Damascus as the "first round in a new Middle East war".
Senior leaders of the Lebanese-based Hizbollah group warned that the raid, on an alleged Palestinian training camp, would inflame a border that had been relatively quiet for 30 years.
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"It is wrong to bear an attack without a response. This changes the region," said Mohammad Raad, the deputy leader of Hizbollah. "It demands that the resistance groups increase pressure on Israel. In the south of Lebanon, this means Hizbollah has the responsibility for aggression towards Israel. We are moving towards regional war."
Western diplomats in Beirut believe that Damascus will use the terrorist group as a "forward defensive shield" against Israel. According to one diplomat, Syria is preparing to equip Hizbollah with Russian-made SA-18 surface-to-air missiles, which have a range of more than 16,000 feet, to target Israeli warplanes.
Hizbollah, which is also funded by Iran, is believed to have a stockpile of 10,000 short and long-range rockets capable of landing in Israeli territory, but the few missiles it currently has are antiquated and pose little threat to the Israeli airforce.
Although Israel's firepower is vastly superior, Hizbollah claims credit for having crippled Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon with suicide bomb attacks, ambushes of military convoys, and roadside bombings. It has supplied Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza with weapons and training, and Hizbollah cells are known to have infiltrated the occupied territories.
Yesterday, however, Israel left Hizbollah's sponsor, Syria, in no doubt that it was vulnerable to fresh attack at any time. After a spokesman for Syria's foreign ministry reiterated its right to "self-defence", Israel instantly hit back. "Israel views every state that is harbouring terrorist organisations and the leaders of those terrorist organisations who are attacking innocent citizens of the state of Israel as legitimate targets out of self-defence," said Gideon Meir, a senior foreign ministry spokesman.
Last Sunday's strike was ordered in response to the suicide bombing of a restaurant in Haifa, carried out by the terror group Islamic Jihad, in which 20 people died.
Syria denied having any Islamic Jihad bases, and the president, Bashar Assad, said that the raid was an Israeli attempt to provoke war. In a series of tit-for-tat reactions, an Israeli soldier patrolling the border with Lebanon was shot and killed the day after the raid, in an attack blamed on Hizbollah. Israel later published a map showing the offices and homes of alleged terrorists in Damascus, and threatened fresh raids.
While Syria claimed that the training camp had long since been abandoned, Israel and America said on Friday that it had been used recently. "Our intelligence indicates that it was a camp in active use by terrorist organisations," said Adam Ereli, a spokesman for the US State Department.
At points along the border with Lebanon, Israeli soldiers and Hizbollah guerrillas are positioned less than 100ft apart, separated only by contingents of United Nations troops. Israel depends for its protection on an 80-mile "smart" fence and radar stations that detect activated weapon systems and can "see" five miles into Lebanon.
Israel has modified American-supplied cruise missiles to carry nuclear warheads on its submarines patrolling in the Mediterranean, according to senior Bush administration and Israeli officials.
A report in the Los Angeles Times said Israel could now launch nuclear weapons from land, sea and air. The revelation may complicate efforts by the United States and the United Nations to persuade Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear programme.
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9 October 2003: Bush gives nod to Syria sanctions |
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6 October 2003: Raid on Syria is Sharon's shock therapy |
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