Syria Planning to Attack Israel, Magazine Says

Syria is planning a limited war with Israel later this year to regain the disputed Golan Heights and is seeking military support from its Arab neighbors, according to an article in the latest edition of Jane’s Defense Weekly.

This week’s edition of the magazine quoted unidentified “moderate Arab sources” as saying Syrian government and military officials have visited several Arab countries, including Libya and Jordan, in recent weeks to brief Arab governments on the purported war plan.

Jane’s said Jordan is believed to have resisted Syrian pressure to launch “diversionary attacks” across the Jordan River to coincide with a Syrian attack on the Golan Heights.

But it quoted “well-placed Jordanian sources” as saying that King Hussein was considering lending diplomatic support to a Syrian assault.

Israeli forces in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War occupied the Golan Heights area inside Syria from which Israeli settlements had for years been shelled. The Israeli government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin annexed the territory in 1973.

Jane’s quoted the sources as saying Syria is asking Arab governments to support its planned offensive by applying diplomatic pressure in the United Nations after the war starts “for an acceptance of a cease-fire in place once Syria has achieved its objectives.”

The assault, which would be launched by in-place Syrian forces to avoid triggering an Israeli mobilization, could be completed within 36 hours, the magazine quoted the sources as saying.