Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (14631)	8/1/2006 1:39:35 PM
From: Scoobah	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Assad tells Syrian army to step up state of readiness and takes two further provocative steps August 1, 2006, 1:05 AM (GMT+02:00) Syrian military intelligence agents detonated a bomb at the Golan border fence near Kuneitra, though causing no casualties, and the Syrian president put defense minister Gen. Hassan Turkemeni in charge of military assistance to Hizballah. He also instructed chief of staff Gen. Ali Habib to personally oversee Syrian-Iranian cooperation for military consignments to Hizballah. In his order of the day to the Syrian army, Bashar Assad wrote: “I call on all units, divisions, brigades and battalions to redouble their training efforts and maintain a high state of readiness. Remember that every drop of sweat you invest in training will save a drop of blood when the time comes.” He added: “Threats from the ‘masters of the world’ (US and Israel) telling us to beware will not divert us from our path.” DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources add: For three weeks, Assad has been working up to provoking a limited war engagement with Israel. 1. A close crony, Syrian lawmaker Marwan Habash is advocating the creation of a resistance (terrorist) movement on the Golan Heights - likewise the prominent cleric, Sheikh Asad Kopertou. 2. For the first time in three decades the presidential palace allowed Syrian Druze leaders to openly speak out in favor of an armed campaign to recapture the Golan Heights. Israeli intelligence leaders are not of one mind about what these steps signify. Some diagnose posturing by Damascus to get in on the Lebanon act while not taking the chance of a missile war with Israel; others argue that the Syrian president must be angling for a limited military confrontation, otherwise he would not so blatantly parade his backing for the Hizballah.