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Syrian hassad israel wants war { October 7 2003 }

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   http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1057745,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1057745,00.html

11am update
Syrian president accuses Israel of warmongering

Agencies
Tuesday October 7, 2003

The Syrian president, Bashar Assad, today accused the Israeli government of attempting to provoke a war when it sent fighter planes to bomb a purported terrorist camp near Damascus on Sunday.
In his first comments to the media since Israeli bombers struck Syrian territory for the first time in 20 years, Mr Assad told the pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat that the attack was "an attempt by the Israeli government to extract itself from its big crisis by trying to terrorise Syria and drag it and the region into other wars".

"This [Israeli] government is one of war, and war is the justification for its existence," he said.

Sunday's airstrike hit what Israel called a camp of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, about 15 miles from the Syrian capital, Damascus. The attack came as retaliation for a suicide bombing in the Israeli city of Haifa on Saturday in which 19 people were killed. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing.

No one was killed in the Israeli strike. Villagers said the militants' camp had been abandoned years ago.

Mr Assad told the London-based paper: "There is no doubt that the role Syria plays in the various issues in our region is painful to this [Israeli] government. What happened [on Sunday] was a failed Israeli attempt to undercut this role. We can, with full confidence, say that what happened will only make Syria's role more effective and influential in events in the region - contrary to what this [Israeli] government wants."

Mr Assad did not say how Syria would respond to the attack. Syria presented a motion to the UN security council on Sunday, calling on the world body to condemn Israel. The council postponed a vote. The US has warned it would veto any motion that did not also condemn the Haifa bombing.

Asked about pressure from the US, which has accused Syria of supporting terrorists and allowing fighters to cross into Iraq, Mr Assad said: "We are not a superpower, but we are not a weak state either. We're not a country without cards ... We are not a state that can be ignored in the issues under discussion."

He said he believed Syria's dialogue with Washington should continue, but he also accused the US of using Syria as a scapegoat.

"In reality, if the US failed in the farthest part of Asia ... it would blame Syria and Iran - this is taken for granted," Mr Assad said.

On Sunday, the US state department said Syria "must cease harbouring terrorists and make a clean break from those responsible for planning and directing terrorist action from Syrian soil".

Mr Assad defended his government's giving sanctuary to Palestinian groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which the EU and the US list as terrorist organisations.

"It is not important to call them terrorist or not terrorist. There are existing forces that you must deal with," Mr Assad said. He added he did not regard such groups as terrorist and their members in Syria had not broken the law.

Turning to US accusations on Iraq, Mr Assad implied his government could not have perfect control over Syria's long desert border with Iraq.

"There is big chaos" in Iraq, he said. "There is arms smuggling and persons [crossing the border] and we don't know who they are. Of course, the Americans say that they are terrorists ... Maybe, for them, any Arab is a terrorist."

Syria, which fought Israel in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, has taken the hardest line among Arab states in peace negotiations with Israel, refusing to recognise the Jewish state and insisting on the complete return of all captured territory. Peace talks between the two states were suspended indefinitely in 2000.



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