Syria appears to have confirmed its involvement in a recent attack by a glider-borne terrorist and is warning Israel that retaliation against targets in Syria would mean war.
The attack, on the night of Nov. 25, killed six Israel Defense Force soldiers and wounded seven at an upper Galilee military base.
The Arab affairs correspondent of the Israeli daily Haaretz reported Sunday that Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas boasted over the weekend that Syria provides unlimited assistance to “the Palestinian struggle against the Zionist occupation forces.”
Speaking to the graduating class at an air force academy, Tlas referred to “the heroic act of the (glider) pilot from Aleppo, Halad Muhammed Akar, who participated in an action in the north of Palestine and killed or wounded 37 Zionist soldiers and officers,” Haaretz reported.
Tlas said that before leaving on his mission, Akar wrote to President Hafez Assad of Syria that the only way to liberate the homeland is a confrontation with the “Zionist enemy.”
Davar’s Arab affairs correspondent reported Sunday that Syrian propaganda organs have warned that if Israel hits Syrian targets or terrorist bases in Syria in retaliation for the glider attack, war is likely to break out between Syria and Israel.
The paper quoted the official Syrian newspaper Al-Baath as stating that “Israel must know that any move to attack Syria will mean war… and no one will be spared.”
The Dubai newspaper Al-Biyan published an interview with the Palestine Liberation Organization’s deputy chief, Abu Iyyad, who claimed that Israel is preparing attacks against a base in Syria of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, PLO headquarters in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon and a PLO base in South Yemen.
According to Abu Iyyad, the Israeli attack had to be postponed because of the Reagan-Gor-bachev summit meeting in Washington last week.
Lebanese radio stations and sources in Beirut reported Sunday that the IDF and its allied South Lebanon Army have armored forces poised in the southern Lebanon security zone to attack targets in southern Lebanon.
The sources said the IDF has concentrated three battalions in the Marjayoun area and trucks carrying Merkava and M-48 tanks were seen in the Jezzine area.
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.
