3 Israeli Soldiers Killed in Ambush

Palestinian guerrillas ambushed Israeli soldiers on patrol in the Jordan Valley on Wednesday, killing three and wounding two in the deadliest clash along the border between Jordan and the West Bank in a decade.

Syrian-based Palestinian radicals claimed responsibility for the ambush and said it was intended to protest the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords. But the attack was viewed as a Syrian challenge to Jordan as much as an attack on Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the guerrillas had infiltrated from Jordan and that King Hussein telephoned him after receiving news of the incident.

“He views this attack as a deliberate assault on both of us, Israel and Jordan, and we both agreed that this border must remain one of peace,” Netanyahu said.

Hussein signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, ending nearly half a century of hostilities, and has since tried to become a bridge between Israel and the rest of the Arab world. Unlike most Arab leaders, Hussein congratulated Netanyahu after his election.

Syrian President Hafez Assad, who considers himself to be the region’s leader and key to Middle East peace, has been irked with Hussein and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for making bilateral peace agreements with Israel.

Jordanian officials have accused Syria of sending guerrillas to carry out attacks against Israeli targets in an attempt to sabotage the Israeli-Jordanian relationship.

Hussein and Assad clashed over this and the Arab world’s posture toward Netanyahu at a pan-Arab summit in Cairo last weekend.

Alexander Bligh, an expert on Middle East relations at Hebrew University, said on Israel Radio that “the Syrians are very, very disturbed by the de facto military pact between Israel, Jordan, Turkey and the United States. Ultimately, most or all of the countries surrounding Syria, except for Lebanon, are in the Syrian eyes enemy countries, and this is a strategic problem for Syria.”

Wednesday’s ambush occurred about 8 a.m. as Israeli soldiers patrolled the border near the Jewish settlement of Naaran, not far from the Palestinian-ruled town of Jericho.

Israeli army officials said they believe that two or three assailants carried out the attack after entering the West Bank from Jordan. Israeli and Jordanian troops combed both sides of the river, firing automatic weapons into the underbrush, while helicopters from both countries searched overhead.

The Abu Moussa guerrilla group, based in the Syrian capital of Damascus, issued a statement saying one of its men was missing after the gun battle. The group is a splinter faction of Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization.

Netanyahu, who was elected on a platform of providing security for Israelis against terrorist attacks, has stepped up his criticism of Syria in recent days, saying the country could pursue “either peace or terrorism but not both.”

After Wednesday’s attack, he threatened to seek economic sanctions against Syria for its support of Islamic terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have offices in Damascus.

“We will have to work, with international cooperation, to put political and, if necessary, economic pressure on Damascus so that it understands it is not worth its while to continue along this path,” Netanyahu told Israel Radio.

Meanwhile, in Cairo, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher appeared to soften the U.S. position on Middle East peacemaking, saying that the long-standing principle of trading Israeli-held land for peace with Arab neighbors is merely a general guideline.

“The United States has had the policy and continues to have the policy of land for peace,” Christopher said. “But generalities do not produce peace agreements.”

Insisting that there was no policy change, he nonetheless added that “the parties will have to move into negotiations taking into account those general principles but applying them in the context of reality.”

His comments appeared designed to please Netanyahu, who opposes returning the captured Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace and who seems to be backing away from agreements to trade land for peace with the Palestinians.