Syria terror group claims 1st attack against Israel
Pastor Dale Morgan
Syria terror group claims 1st attack against Israel*
Attempted landmine bombing 'start of campaign to force Jewish retreat'
Posted: March 5, 2007
News From Israel
TEL AVIV – A purported new Syrian terror group claimed in a WND
interview it attempted its first-ever attack against the Jewish state
this weekend by placing mines on the Israeli side of the border.
We were put in touch through officials from Syrian President Bashar
Assad's Baath party with a man claiming to be a leader of the Committees
for the Liberation of the Golan Heights, a group that said it formed in
Syria in June and is modeling itself after the Lebanese Hezbollah militia.
The Committees leader claimed his organization was responsible for
placing six unexploded mines Saturday morning within northern Israeli
territory in the Golan Heights. He said the mines were intended to
explode in an attack against an Israeli military unit that patrols the
area. He claimed more attacks would follow unless Israel withdraws from
the Golan Heights.
The mines originated in an Israeli minefield that lies in a narrow,
United Nations-patrolled buffer zone between the Israeli border and
Syrian territory. The Israeli Defense Forces came across the mines
Saturday night during a routine patrol, and called in sappers (military
demolitions specialists) to disarm them. Israel plans to file a
complaint this week with the U.N. for what it says was the international
body's failure to maintain the buffer zone.
IDF officials immediately guessed the mines were thrown into Israel as a
provocation by local Syrian shepherds, but they admitted such an
occurrence would be highly unusual. The officials said the mines were
thrown over the border this weekend, ruling out the possibility the
explosives had been washed into Israel by the heavy rains.
The Syrian Committees for the Liberation of the Golan first announced
its establishment in a widely circulated exclusive interview last August.
Last month, the Committees claimed it was holding a missing Israeli
soldier and will free the captive in exchange for nine Syrians held in
Israeli jails. In a faxed a statement to reporters addressing "the
Zionists," the Committees offered a prisoner-swap deal for Israeli
soldier Guy Hever, who has been missing since 1997 and who the group
claimed is in its custody. Hever disappeared in the Golan Heights near
the Syrian border.
In August, and again during a second, in-person interview with WND in
December, leaders for the Syrian group threatened if Israel does not
vacate the Golan Heights within months, the group will launch
"resistance operations" against Israeli positions and Jewish communities
in the Golan Heights.
An official from Assad's Baath party who said he was associated with the
Committees said that Syria learned from Hezbollah's military campaign
against Israel that "fighting" is more effective than peace negotiations
with regard to gaining territory."
Hezbollah claims its goal is to liberate the Shebaa Farms, a small,
12-square-mile bloc situated between Syria, Lebanon and Israel. The
cease-fire resolution accepted by Israel to end its military campaign in
Lebanon this past summer calls for negotiations leading to Israel's
relinquishing of the Shebaa Farms.
The Baath official said that Syria's new Committees for the Liberation
of the Golan Heights consists of Syrian volunteers, many from the Syrian
border with Turkey and from Palestinian refugee camps near Damascus. He
said Syria held registration for volunteers to join the Committees in June.
The official said attacks by the Committees may include the infiltration
of Jewish communities in the Golan, rocket attacks against Israeli
positions or raids of Golan-based Israeli military installations. He
said all attacks would be launched from the Syrian side of the border.
The Golan Heights is strategic mountainous territory captured by the
Jewish state after Syria used the terrain to attack Israel in 1967 and
again in 1973. The Heights looks down on major Syrian and Israeli
population centers, but there are a few areas where the Israeli and
Syrian sides are level.
Military officials here long have maintained returning the Golan Heights
to Syria would grant Damascus the ability to mount an effective ground
invasion of the Jewish state.
The Heights has a population of about 35,000 – approximately 18,000
Jewish residents and 17,000 Arabs, mostly Druze. The Arab residents
retain their Syrian citizenship, but under Israeli law they can also sue
for Israeli citizenship. About a dozen officials from Assad's Baath
party live and operate in the Golan.
Israeli security officials in December confirmed the establishment of a
Hezbollah-like Syrian group, but said it was still in its infancy stages
and likely could not carry out attacks.