[NYTr] Syrian MP says Israeli Provocation an Attack that Failed

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Ha'aretz - Sep 10, 2007 
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/902095.html


Syrian MP: IAF overflight was an attack that failed

By Barak Ravid, Yoav Stern, and Amos Harel
Haaretz Correspondents and News Agencies

A hardline Syrian lawmaker said Sunday that the alleged violation of
his country's airspace by the Israel Air Force in the early hours of
Thursday was an attempted attack that had failed.

"What happened was an attempted attack, but it definitely failed and
that is what led to the contradictions in Israeli declarations," said
Muhammad Habash, who often expresses a hardline stance about Israel
under the direction of the Syrian regime.

Habash said that if Israel had succeeded, it would have rushed to
announce the operation to the world, as it did immediately after
bombing the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.

Meanwhile, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem was to present Turkey
with evidence backing its claim that the IAF had indeed violated Syrian
airspace, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayyat reported
Sunday.

Muallem was to arrive in Ankara on Sunday, for meetings with Turkish
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan.
Prior to departing for Turkey, Muallem was to meet with European Union
envoys in Damascus.

Al-Hayyat also quoted its senior correspondent in Damascus, Ibrahim
Hamidi, as saying that Syria is convinced that the Syrian military's
warning to Israel "against such operations" was "serious, deterring,
and non-escalating."

Damascus sources said they believe the alleged operation was a
"diplomatic and military experiment" in order to test Syria's reactions
and intentions.

Israel is maintaining a complete blackout regarding the Syrian charges.
Cabinet ministers and senior IDF officers have repeatedly refused to
comment on the alleged incident, either on or off the record.

They did, however, express their satisfaction with developments and the
way decisions had been taken during the crisis with Syria in recent
weeks.

Reporters who were invited to the cabinet meeting were only allowed to
enter the room once all the ministers were already seated, in order to
prevent the media from asking the ministers questions.

Syria is still undecided on its response to the alleged IAF flyover.
The defense establishment does not rule out a Syrian attempt to respond
by missile fire. Syria reportedly might also respond later, possibly
through terror groups identified with it.

The IDF, however, has lowered its state of alert on the Syrian border
compared to last week. Israeli defense officials said over the weekend
that although the situation on the Syrian border is still of concern,
it is unlikely that Syrian President Bashar Assad was headed for war in
the immediate future.

The Lebanese newspaper A-Nahar said Sunday that reports were
circulating in Damascus according to which Syria had begun a partial
call-up of reservists. However, the newspaper emphasized that it was
unclear to what extent the reports were true and whether or not the
call-up is related to Thursday's incident.

Turkey has asked Israel for clarification after finding two fuel tanks
on its territory near the Syrian border.

The tanks allegedly belong to IAF warplanes, a diplomatic source said
Saturday. Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper Saturday published photographs of
what it said were fuel tanks jettisoned by Israeli F-15s sent to gather
intelligence on Syrian installations near the Turkish border.

The jettisoned fuel tanks were discovered late on Thursday in the
Turkish provinces of Hatay and Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, hours
after Damascus had accused Israel of dropping munitions over its
territory.

The Prime Minister's Bureau refused to respond to the reports in the
Turkish media. However, government sources noted that Israel's envoy to
Ankara was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry and given a
diplomatic protest regarding the alleged IAF flyover of Syrian air
space.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry announced Thursday that it "took a harsh
view of the invasion of Syrian air space by the IAF." The Foreign
Ministry in Jerusalem is expected to receive the Turkish letter of
protest on Sunday and to discuss possible responses to it.

"We have asked Israel to explain what happened," a Turkish diplomatic
source told Reuters. The source said Turkish authorities were also
trying to establish whether Israeli warplanes had briefly violated
Turkey's airspace.

The Hurriyet report cited unnamed "experts" as saying they believed the
Israeli warplanes had jettisoned extra fuel tanks in order to escape
more swiftly after Syria targeted them. A Western diplomat speaking to
Reuters in Damascus on Thursday offered a similar explanation of what
had occurred. Witnesses in the area of Tal al-Abiad near the Turkish
border where the reported bombing happened also said they spotted
several fuel tanks.