Israel: Syria Used Iran Aid Planes for Arms
January 09, 2004
Reuters
Jeffrey Heller
JERUSALEM -- Israeli security sources said Friday Syrian planes that flew earthquake relief aid to Iran had returned with weapons for Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas but Iran dismissed the charge as a "lie."
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi called the accusation a "baseless and a sheer lie."
"After the Israelis observed the ... world's solidarity with the Iranian nation they became angry and they're continuing their policy based on lies and cheating by fabricating such news," he told Reuters.
Syrian officials had no immediate comment.
The allegation, first reported by state-owned Israeli television, could help Prime Minister Ariel Sharon cold-shoulder any U.S. or domestic calls to resume peace talks with Syria over the future of the occupied Golan Heights.
The Israeli sources said Syrian aircraft delivering aid for victims of the December 26 earthquake in the Iranian city of Bam carried missiles and other weapons for Hizbollah on the return leg to Damascus, where the arms were put on trucks to Lebanon.
"Shipments to Hizbollah had been suspended because Washington has been keeping a close eye on Syria since the war in Iraq began (in March)," one of the sources said.
The security sources said U.S. intelligence was also aware of the alleged Syrian operation.
Shi'ite Muslim Hizbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria, spearheaded a guerrilla campaign that led to Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation.
Since the pullout, the group has carried out sporadic attacks against Israeli forces at Shebaa Farms, an area which Hizbollah says is Lebanese territory and the United Nations calls Israeli-occupied Syrian land.
U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and Syria collapsed in 2000 over the issue of how much of the Golan, seized in the 1967 Middle East war, would be returned.
Syria wants all of the heights, but Israel sees the territory as strategically important for controlling the Sea of Galilee, its biggest reservoir.
Israel's Maariv newspaper, reporting that senior Israeli cabinet ministers and military officials were urging Sharon to negotiate with Syria, quoted him as saying privately the Israeli public "would not tolerate" giving up the strategic plateau.
An opinion poll published Friday in Maariv found that 56 percent of Israelis opposed withdrawing from the Golan.
But some Israeli politicians have said that Israel should negotiate now with a Syrian leader who has been weakened by the U.S. invasion of Iraq and could be open to concessions.
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