Golan Heights residents 'ready for resistance'

(BBC)

TEL AVIV – If the Jewish state doesn't vacate the Golan Heights in the near future, Golan residents living under Israeli administration will launch "resistance operations" aimed at prompting an Israeli retreat from the territory, an official from Syrian President Bashar Assad's Baath party told WND in an exclusive interview yesterday.

"Syria is ready to talk with Israel but only if negotiations lead to a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. There may be peace; there may be war. If there is no movement, Syrian resistance will be launched and not from the government but from the people of the Golan," said the Baath party official, who spoke on condition his name be withheld.

"We [Syria] have weapons and soldiers on the border with Israel, but let's face it, it's difficult to amass tanks or launch any invasion because the U.N. mans the border. But Syrian residents of the Golan are ready to launch resistance," the official claimed.

The Golan Heights is strategic mountainous territory looking down on Israeli and Syrian population centers captured by Israel after Damascus twice used the territory to attack the Jewish state. There are U.N. posts at international buffer areas between the Israeli and Syrian sides of the territory.

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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 can also sue for Israeli citizenship.

The Syrian representative's statements come amid a flurry of reports this week in the Israeli media – first reported three weeks ago by WND (link:) – that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is exploring the possibility of talks with Syria aimed at an Israeli retreat from the Golan.

The Baath official said the Syrian government has not received any direct overtures from Israeli officials about conducting negotiations.

"The only thing we hear of these talks are from the Israeli media reports," the official said.

WND reported Olmert – faced with devastatingly low poll numbers and calls from the public and senior officials to resign – directed staffers at Israel's Foreign Ministry to prepare for the possibility of talks with Syria.

Some analysts here have speculated in the Israeli media Olmert's ratings could rise if he reached out to his leftist base and conducted negotiations with the Palestinians or Syria.

According to the Israeli media, Olmert tapped third parties to approach Syria to feel out whether Damascus is seriously interested in negotiations.

Syria, which signed a military alliance with Iran, openly hosts Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders. The U.S. accuses Syria of fueling and aiding the insurgency in Iraq. Israel says Syria has been allowing large quantities of weapons to be transported from its borders to the Lebanese-based Hezbollah militia, which last summer engaged in a war with the Jewish state. Syria has been widely blamed for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has made a number of statements the past few months his army is preparing for a war with Israel, claiming the Jewish state is planning to attack first.

Last weekend, Assad reportedly called for "better cooperation" between Damascus and Tehran in "the confrontation with the Zionist regime and the USA," according to a report published Sunday by Iran's official state news agency, IRNA.

Syria forming new terror group?

The Baath representative's claims that Golan residents are ready to launch "resistance" against Israel follows a series of WND interviews in which Baath officials said a purported new Syrian guerilla organization recently was formed and is ready for attacks if Israel doesn't withdraw from the Golan.

According to the officials, the group, the Syrian Committees for the Liberation of the Golan, was formed last year and is modeling itself after the Syrian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia.

In a WND interview, one Baath party official said Syria learned from Hezbollah's military campaign against Israel last summer 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 last July and August called 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 last 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.

WND first reported last June on the alleged formation of the Committees for the Liberation of the Golan.

One month later, a man identified as the leader of the Committees gave an interview to state-run Iranian television.

In February, a fax sent to news agencies signed by the Committees claimed the group was holding Guy Hever, an Israeli soldier who has been missing since 1991. Hever disappeared in the Golan Heights near the Syrian border.

Israel is taking the claims of formation of the Committees information seriously. Amos Yadlin, head of the IDF's intelligence branch, told the Knesset in October Syria is indeed in the early stages of forming a Hezbollah-like group.

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