(New York Times) - After last week's attack on a Palestinian terrorist training camp in Syria, political analyst Haitham Kilani, a retired diplomat and air force general, said Syria had called up 300,000 of its 1.5 million reservists. The aging ministers around young president Bashar Assad had long expected that stopping the proxy war waged by groups including Hizballah in southern Lebanon as well as Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be a card Syria could play to win back the Golan Heights. Now they are finding that expelling the Palestinian groups might be the price the Syrian government pays to head off future attacks. "I am sure they [the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad] will leave if America puts pressure on Syria, " said Khaled al-Fahoum, an independent Palestinian official.
2003-10-13 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive