(Jerusalem Post) Janine Zacharia and Arieh O'Sullivan - The IDF believes Assad is misjudging the situation and ignoring the warnings that Israel is passing on to him. One senior IDF officer said Monday that Assad "sees (Hizballah leader Hassan) Nasrallah as a leader who vanquished Israel and chased it out of Lebanon. He doesn't see Hizballah just as a proxy but a significant arm of his capable of putting pressure on Israel." According to military sources, Assad instructed that 220 mm rockets made in Syria be transferred to Hizballah. IDF intelligence believes that Assad is not being led by those around him but is leading and is quite stable in his regime, seeing himself as a leader of Arab nationalism. Assad hopes that the U.S. will become bogged down in a guerrilla war in Iraq. "This is why Assad doesn't feel pressured by U.S. pressures and messages," said a military source.
2003-08-19 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive