Massive IDF drill prepares for Syrian attack on Golan

JP ^ | 4/27/07 | y YAAKOV KATZ

[Flavius]

The IDF on Thursday held intensive training maneuvers in preparation for a feared Syrian attack on the Golan Heights.

Hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers, backed by helicopters and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, massed in the Judean Desert to drill simulations of war. The training exercise focused on Brigade 401 and its utilization of Israel’s most advanced tank - the Merkava Mark 4 - against the Syrian advanced Russian-made T-72.

Since the Second Lebanon War, Military Intelligence has claimed that war with Syria is now closer than ever, and the IDF is on heightened alert in the North in preparation for the possibility of a surprise attack.

# Analysis: Weak Assad could be a loose cannon

President Bashar Assad, analysts have said, was empowered by Hizbullah’s surprise success while fighting the IDF. The assessment is that he might be motivated to launch hostilities in an effort to retrieve the Golan Heights, either by initiating a surprise attack to capture one or two Israeli communities or by firing long-range ballistic missiles at the home front.

The assumption within the defense establishment is that while war with Syria would definitely be of a conventional nature, Damascus would most likely utilize its strong ballistic missile arsenal and its division of several thousand commandos.

Thursday’s drill indicated that the IDF has not ruled out the possibility that a war would also entail tank battles, once believed to have been a relic of historic wars like the Six Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973..............."

[GSlob]

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