Last update - 02:39 03/09/2004
Background: Israel's war on Hamas takes a turn, toward Syria
By Bradley
Burston, Haaretz Correspondent
In a conflict of blood and irony, it may come as no surprise that Israel's successes in curbing terror by killing or jailing its warlords may now spell even more difficult challenges for the military.
With the top leaders of Hamas in their graves and others on the run, Israel has begun to look north for the men now issuing marching orders to the powerful Islamic militant group.
Israeli officials signaled this week that senior Hamas officials based in Damascus issued the orders for twin suicide bombings that killed 16 Israelis and wounded nearly 100 in Be'er Sheva on Tuesday.
Israeli officials have said that "solid evidence" to that effect has been sent to Washington. Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom left for the Netherlands on Thursday to press the point with his counterparts in the European Union, which is poised to sign economic agreements with the Assad government in the near future.
The attack rocked Israel, not least because it broke a five-month lull in which Israel had foiled hundreds of planned attacks within the state.
In fact, the very success of the Israeli campaign to, in the Pentagon's phrase, decapitate militant organizations may take the next phases of the anti-terrorism campaign in uncharted - and even more dangerous - waters.
"The weakening of the terror organizations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have created a leadership vacuum external bodies are trying to fill. The most obvious are Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas headquarters in Damascus - both of them egged on by Syria," says Haaretz militarey commentator Amos Harel.
According to Harel, intelligence sources told Ya'alon this week that Hezbollah currently funds and directs fully 75 percent of the planned terror attacks mounted from the West Bank.
By contrast, in Hebron, a traditional stronghold of Hamas and the launch point for the Be'er Sheva attack, the fundamentalist organization is in direct contact with the Hamas command in Damascus.
"The assessment in the Central Command is that the struggle against terror has changed face. There is no longer a direct confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians - instead directives come from Iran and Hezbollah with Syrian support," Harel writes in Thursday's paper.
The Israeli assessments begged the question of whether military operations in Syria might be in the offing. Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim's answer was prompt. "The rule that 'anyone who deals in terror against Israel is a target' is a rule that must be stated and one that we must stand behind."
Last October, breaking long precedent in response to a deadly bombing at a crowded seaside Haifa restaurant, Israeli warplanes bombed a suspected terrorist training base near Damascus. It was the first Israeli attack deep inside Syrian territory in more than two decades.
In any case, Boim maintained, Israel would take care not to cause a "conflagration" if it were to attack again on Syrian soil.
"I believe that it is possible to carry out these attacks by correct selection of targets, in the correct 'dosage,' setting out the red lines that must be set out, without thinking in terms of massive conflagration, which is certainly not in our interest," Boim said.
Asked to specify the evidence of a Syrian connection, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom declined to respond directly, but said, in an apparent reference to the Damascus-based Hamas command:
"Syria is involved in terror all the time. Syria is responsible for acts of terrorism and granting patronage for terror, and therefore we view it as responsible the moment that those organizations receive direct orders from their headquarters in Damascus.
"When Syria is responsible, it must of course understand that there are some quite clear results."
Asked about the evidence, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom declined to respond directly, but said, in an apparent reference to the Damascus-based Hamas command:
"Syria is involved in terror all the time. Syria is responsible for acts of terrorism and granting patronage for terror, and therefore we view it as responsible the moment that those organizations receive direct orders from their headquarters in Damascus.
"When Syria is responsible, it must of course understand that there are some quite clear results."
Israeli officials have singled out Damascus-based Hamas' deputy political bureau head Moussa Abu Marzouk, as the senior commander behind the bus bombings. Long on Israel's hit list, Abu Marzouk is also wanted in the United States.
U.S. authorities detained Abu Marzouk in 1995 on suspicion of having set up and used ostensible charities in the United States in order to mobilize financial and political support for Hamas. U.S. authorities deported him to Jordan in 1997. But he was indicted in absentia earlier this year along with two suspected Hamas operatives still living in the United States, for allegedly recruiting and soliticiting funds for a terror organization.
Last year, the U.S. government designated Abu Marzouk as a Special Designated Global Terrorist Entity, along with Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, and Khaled Mashal, freezing their assets and barring financial transactions with them.
The Israeli military assassinated Sheikh Yassin in March, and Rantisi a short time later.
Mashal, whom Israeli sources have also linked to the bombings and other terror operations within Israel, remains along with Abu Marzouk near the top of Israel's list of most-wanted terror commanders. Mashal narrowly recovered from a sophisticated, ultimately disastrous Mossad assassination attempt in Amman in the 1990s.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan on Thursday cautioned Israel that the militant Islamic organization "will not sit idly by" if Israeli forces attempt to assassinate its leaders aboad, Israel Radio reported.
Hamas has said in the past that it would view such an attack as a "green light" to attack Israeli targets overseas.
At least one Israeli figure said that the benefit of military action might outweigh the risk of conflagration. Said senior Likud lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the key Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee:
"Sooner or later, Israel will have to set down a red line with respect to the reality in Lebanon. In the past, when the Syrian army tried to move into the south with tanks, artillery and infantry, we attacked and set a red line, such that the Syrian army would not move heavy arms and units south of the Beirut-Damascus line.
In recent years, however, the pro-Iranian Lebanese Hezbollah has been shifting into south Lebanon missiles and rockets capable of reaching Haifa Bay and the Israeli heartland, Steinitz continued.
"Whether by sinking a boat, or [attacking] a truck convoy or by striking storehouses, the time has come for us - even at the price of the danger of conflagration - to set down a red line and declare 'This is it. We will not allow heavy surface-to-surface missiles to be deployed in Lebanon, and to pose a significant strategic threat to northern central Israel'."
