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Israel retaliates with air strike
Published:
Monday, October 6, 2003
Michael Matza
Knight Ridder Newspapers
JERUSALEM -- Israel struck deep inside Syria Sunday in retaliation for the suicide bombing of a Haifa restaurant that killed 19 Israelis and wounded 55 Saturday.
Israel said its warplanes bombed a terrorist training camp used by groups including Islamic Jihad, the organization that claimed responsibility for the Haifa attack.
Syria protested, saying the attack was on a refugee camp, and Islamic Jihad denied that it had any training camps in Syria.
The pre-dawn raid on the camp about 14 miles from the Syrian capital of Damascus was the first Israeli air strike on Syrian soil in 20 years, raising fears that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict could spill over into regional hostilities.
"The Islamic Jihad, like other terrorist organizations operating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, enjoys support and backing of countries in the region, foremost among them Iran and Syria," a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces said. "Syria gives cover to terrorist organizations within the country, including in Damascus, while Iran provides funding and direction."
Ranaan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said in a broadcast interview that Israel "will not tolerate the continuation of this axis of terror between Tehran, Damascus and Gaza." By retaliating in Syria, instead of Ramallah, where Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has his headquarters, Israel sidestepped domestic pressure to deport Arafat.
Last month, the Israeli cabinet voted to "remove" him at a time of its choosing because Israel says he is complicit in terror attacks. Saturday's carnage in Haifa provided all the justification Israel needed to act, several cabinet ministers said.
But the United States is opposed to Arafat's ouster at this time, so it appears Israel felt pressure to come up with a different response.
By acting against an alleged Palestinian training camp on Syrian soil, it appears Israel is applying the doctrine of pre-emptive action that President Bush used to justify the war in Iraq and "the global war on terror." While urging restraint by all parties in the Middle East, the Bush administration also used Sunday's action to keep up its pressure on Syria.
"We have repeatedly told the government of Syria that it's on the wrong side in the war on terror and it must stop harboring terrorists. That is still our view," said an administration official.
Because the Middle East is so often a tinderbox, the action also drew calls for calm from around the world.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak denounced the raid as an act of "aggression against a brotherly state."
German Chancellor Gerhard Shroeder, who was visiting Mubarak in Cairo, said regional peace efforts "become more complicated when ... the sovereignty of a country is violated." Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri called on the international community and the United Nations "to restrain Israel."
Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher fretted that the attack could "drag the whole region into a circle of violence."
Syria, for its part, called Israel's attack "a grave escalation" and immediately called for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to review the matter.
Syria, which hosts about 360,000 Palestinian refugees in camps throughout the country, insisted the targeted facility was populated only by civilians unconnected to any terrorist group.
Sources in Lebanon, however, said it had been a training camp for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, an anti-Israel group, but had since been abandoned.
The strike, which reportedly wounded one security guard, knocked out several buildings in the Ein Saher camp west of Damascus, including an alleged weapons workshop, Israel said. Sources in Syria said the attack appeared to have been carried out by Israeli jets flying below radar over Lebanon and crossing into Syrian airspace.
Undated videotape of the camp released by Israel and said to have been taken from Iranian television shows a military officer in olive-drab uniform conducting a tour. On display in one room are hundreds of rifles and grenades, some with Hebrew markings, which had apparently been captured from Israel. Another scene showed secret tunnels packed with arms and ammunition.
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