Syria reportedly wary of Israeli Defense Force drill!
DAMASCUS, Syria - August 13, 2008 -
"The Syrian leadership has undertaken emergency preventive and deterrent
measures, fearing that Israel will turn the military exercise in the Golan
Heights to an attack against Syria," Damascus officials reportedly told the
Qatari-based paper Al Watan on Wednesday.
Israel was holding wide-scale tank maneuvers in the territory on Tuesday.
The paper quoted other Syrian officials as saying the Israeli Defense Force maneuvers were not in line with peace overtures Syria had been sending Israel over the past few months.
"The risk of such drills lies in the fact that they take place near the ceasefire line with Syria and also because Defense Minister Ehud Barak and IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi came to supervise them personally," the officials said.
Furthermore, a former Syrian advisor to the regime, George Jabour, said there was a connection between the IDF maneuvers and the conflict between Russia and Georgia. Jabour claimed that the U.S. regime might attempt to "heat up" the Golan front as an indirect response to Russia's attack on Georgia. "The exercise is a provocation against Syria's peaceful intentions," said Jabour.
