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Syria threatens golan settlers if strikes again Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$MUKTQPIDMI2AJQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2003/10/26/wsyria26.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/10/26/ixnewstop.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$MUKTQPIDMI2AJQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2003/10/26/wsyria26.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/10/26/ixnewstop.html
Syria threatens to attack Golan settlers if Israel strikes again
By David Harrison in Damascus
(Filed: 26/10/2003)
Syria has threatened to attack Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights if Tel Aviv launches another assault on its territory.
In a move that will raise tension after Israel struck a suspected terrorist training camp near Damascus earlier this month, Farouk Sharaa, Syria's foreign minister, warned that further "aggression" would prompt Syria to use "other cards".
Mr Sharaa's threat, in an interview with The Telegraph, raises - for the first time since the Israeli raid - the prospect of Syria attacking the area seized from it by Israel in 1967.
The foreign minister also claimed that Syria was unable to stop resistance fighters pouring across the border into Iraq to attack American troops. "They are very determined and many of them dream of seeing an American tank," he said.
Mr Sharaa added that Israel's first incursion into Syria for 20 years had caused deep anger. While Damascus wants peace, he said, many Syrians wanted to hit back. The raid followed an attack by a Palestinian suicide bomber that killed 19 people in a restaurant in the Israeli port city of Haifa.
"After the attack we acted in a responsible way and went to the United Nations and a majority of our people supported that," Mr Sharaa said. "But if we are attacked again our people will not stand for it and we have to carry out the will of the people.
"We have many cards that we have not played. Don't forget there are many Israeli settlements in the Golan. I am not exaggerating but I am describing things as they might happen."
One Western diplomat said that it was feasible that Syria could react to another Israeli attack by striking at Golan settlements, or by "reactivating" Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon. Such a reaction would "up the ante to a dangerous level", he said.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and annexed the area in 1981, claiming that Syria had used it as a base from which to attack Israel. More than 14,000 Jews live on the Golan and the slopes of Mount Hermon.
Washington is already planning tough diplomatic and financial action against Syria. Mr Sharaa risked further American criticism in admitting that Syria could not control the border with Iraq and had failed to stop Palestinians, Iraqis and Syrians going to fight against American forces.
"We are doing everything we can," he said."We have tightened our checkpoints and are turning people back. But the border is long and we cannot cover it all.
"If America, a rich superpower, cannot stop Mexicans crossing into the United States, then how can we, a poor country, be expected to stop Palestinians getting into Iraq?" he added.
He insisted that President Bashar Assad's government had closed down the offices of Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
A visit by The Telegraph to the terrorist groups' offices in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, five miles from central Damascus, confirmed that the offices had been closed.
A Western diplomat said, however: "Closing an office does not mean stopping the activities of an organisation. They can simply move elsewhere - and they have mobile phones."
The envoy said that there had been signs that Syria was making "some efforts in the right direction" on terrorism but added: "We know that these groups are still active here. They have contact with groups in Gaza and provide funding, operational and tactical support. Syria has a long way to go."
Elsewhere in the refugee camp there was clear evidence that Palestinians are joining the resistance against the American forces in Iraq. Near the Al-Wasim mosque, a poster paid tribute to Thaer Abdullah Rahman, formerly of the camp, who was killed in Iraq two months ago.
Wajeeh Maoud, the mosque's muezzin, who calls worshippers to prayer, said that many Palestinians were going into Iraq and some had been killed there. "I don't know how they cross the border," he said. "The Syrian government is not helping them. They are doing it by themselves."
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