New Syrian terror group threatens Israel

JERUSALEM – Marking its official public debut, a purported new Syrian terror group today claimed it is holding a missing Israeli soldier and will free the captive in exchange for nine Syrians held in Israeli jails.

A group calling itself the Syrian Committees for the Liberation of the Golan Heights faxed a statement to reporters addressing "the Zionists" and offering a prisoner-swap deal for Israeli soldier Guy Hever, who has been missing since 1997 and who the group claimed is in its custody. Hever disappeared in the Golan Heights near the Syrian border.

The Syrian Committees for the Liberation of the Golan first announced its establishment in a widely-circulated exclusive interview with WND last June.

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At the time, and again during a second, in-person interview with WND in December, leaders for the Syrian group threatened if Israel does not vacate the Golan Heights within months, the group will launch "resistance operations" against Israeli positions and Jewish communities in the Golan Heights.

The leaders claimed the group formed in Syria in June and is modeling itself after the Syrian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia.

Today's statement signed by the Syrian Committees for the Liberation of the Golan read, "Don't think that your millions of dollars will bring back your soldier missing from the Golan. You know very well how you can get him back."

The group demanded Israel release nine Syrian prisoners, residents of the Golan Heights currently being held in Israeli jails. Four of the nine have been jailed for over 22 years.

The group warned Israel against "bringing harm" to the jailed Syrians.

The authenticity of the statement could not immediately be verified.

In a WND interview, an official from Syrian President Bashar Assad's Baath party said Syria learned from Hezbollah's military campaign against Israel that "fighting" is more effective than peace negotiations with regard to gaining territory."

Hezbollah claims its goal is to liberate the Shebaa Farms, a small, 12-square-mile bloc situated between Syria, Lebanon and Israel. The cease-fire resolution accepted by Israel to end its military campaign in Lebanon this past summer calls for negotiations leading to Israel's relinquishing of the Shebaa Farms.

The Baath official told WND Syria's new Committees for the Liberation of the Golan Heights consists of Syrian volunteers, many from the Syrian border with Turkey and from Palestinian refugee camps near Damascus. He said Syria held registration for volunteers to join the Committees in June.

The official said attacks by the Committees may include the infiltration of Jewish communities in the Golan, rocket attacks against Israeli positions or raids of Golan-based Israeli military installations. He said all attacks would be launched from the Syrian side of the border.

The Golan Heights is strategic mountainous territory captured by the Jewish state after Syria used the terrain to attack Israel in 1967 and again in 1973. The Heights looks down on major Syrian and Israeli population centers, but there are a few areas where the Israeli and Syrian sides are level.

Military officials here long have maintained returning the Golan Heights to Syria would grant Damascus the ability to mount an effective ground invasion of the Jewish state.

The Heights has a population of about 35,000 – approximately 18,000 Jewish residents and 17,000 Arabs, mostly Druze. The Arab residents retain their Syrian citizenship, but under Israeli law they can also sue for Israeli citizenship. About a dozen officials from Assad's Baath party live and operate in the Golan.

Israeli security officials confirmed the establishment of a Hezbollah-like Syrian group, but said it was still in its infancy stages and likely cannot currently carry out attacks.

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