The recent terrorist attack by a lone assailant who crossed the Israel-Lebanon border on a hang-glider and killed six Israeli soldiers is an attempt by Syria to rebuild its credibility in the Arab world, an expert on terrorism asserted in an interview here last week.
According to Lt. Col. Raanan Gissin, former deputy spokesman of the Israel Defense Force and the senior liaison officer with the foreign press in Israel from 1982 to 1986, Syria wanted to demonstrate with this terrorist attack that it is “the leading force in the armed struggle against Israel.”
Syria, Gissin explained, came out as a “total loser” from last month’s Arab summit meeting in Amman, Jordan. Not only did King Hussein of Jordan receive “a green light” by the end of the summit to continue with the efforts to reach a settlement with Israel, but Syria also found itself with only Libya opposing the resumption of diplomatic relations with Egypt, Gissin noted.
“Syria found herself after the summit almost isolated in the Arab world. In addition to the other factors, Syrian isolation in the Arab world was magnified by its support of Iran in the Iran-Iraq war.
“Syria needed something to demonstrate a semblance of leadership in the Arab world,” Gissin continued. “This is why President Hafez Assad (of Syria) allowed the terrorists of Ahmed Jabril, who heads the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which is headquartered in Syria, to launch the attack against Israel,” he said.
NO HERMETIC SEAL ON BORDER
In Gissin’s view, the terrorist suicide mission proves that Israel cannot seal its border with Lebanon hermetically. He contended, however, that the perpetrator, who sailed over the electrified fences of the Lebanon-Israel border in a hang-glider powered by a small bicycle motor, succeeded in his mission “by a fluke,” because he was actually spotted by the IDF radar. Only a failure of the guards to heed the warning that was issued enabled the terrorist to kill six soldiers and wound seven others.
Gissin disclosed that in the last six months, more than 150 terrorists have been killed in the Israeli-controlled security zone in southern Lebanon and on the Israel-Lebanon border by the IDF and the South Lebanon Army, which is backed by Israel.
In addition, various terrorist organizations in Lebanon have attempted 35 attacks on IDF and SLA targets in southern Lebanon in the last 12 months, Gissin said, pointing out that the SLA lost more than 40 troops since September 1986 in clashes with terrorists.
Asked about the possibility of a war between Israel and Syria in the near future, Gissin replied: “Syria is interested in bolstering its image as a leading force in the rejectionist front against Israel, but at the same time she does not want to escalate the confrontation to a full war.”
Syria, the former IDF spokesman asserted, knows that as long as the Iran-Iraq war is continuing, the Arab world is not ready to join ranks against Israel, and Syria alone, which is having severe economic difficulties, will not go to war with the Jewish state under such circumstances.
But Syria, Gissin said, remains “the No. 1 military danger” against Israel. He said that Syrian military might includes 4,100 modern tanks, more than 650 MiG jet fighters, including the sophisticated and new MiG-29, some 150 missiles and chemical weapons that Syria manufactures itself. Syria, he added, has 400,000 regular troops in its army.
Gissin could not give information about the size of the Israeli military. But according to the London Institute on Strategic Studies, the IDF has 3,800 tanks, 600 airplanes and 500,000 soldiers in time of full mobilization of all the troops in reserve.
Gissin predicted that terrorist incidents against Israel will increase with any attempt to reach a peace settlement between Israel and Jordan.
But he noted, at the same time, that in the last year, there has been a marked decline in hard-core terrorist activity within Israel proper and the territories administered by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War. He said that from January to August 1987, there were 274 terrorist incidents in Israel and the territories, compared with 448 terrorists incidents in the same period in 1986.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
