Israel demands Syria dismantles Hizbullah

Emboldened by rising US criticism of Syria, and possibly hoping to extract some immediate benefit from the toppling of Saddam…

Emboldened by rising US criticism of Syria, and possibly hoping to extract some immediate benefit from the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Israeli leaders yesterday demanded that Syria dismantle Hizbullah and cease affording militant Palestinian groups a base in Damascus, writes Peter Hirschberg, in Jerusalem

"Syria is letting terrorist organisations operate in the country . . . Unfortunately they are not doing anything to prevent it," said Foreign Minister Mr Silvan Shalom during a visit to Turkey yesterday.

Defence Minister Mr Shaul Mofaz, in an interview in the daily Maariv, outlined a check-list of demands of the Syrians, including "removing the threat of Hizbullah in south Lebanon; distancing long-range rockets . . . stopping Iranian aid to Hizbullah via Syrian ports; and halting the granting of the cover of respectability to the terror headquarters of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad based in Damascus".

These remarks follow comments on Sunday by US President George Bush in which he warned Syria not to act as a haven for Iraqi leaders. Mr Bush also said he believes Damascus possesses chemical weapons.

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Senior Syrian officials have accused Israel of fomenting the barrage of American criticism, and Foreign Minister Mr Farouk Shara warned on Sunday that Israel would "pay a price" if Syria was attacked.

The Israeli-Syrian border has been almost completely quiet for three decades, but tension between the two countries remains high. Syria demands Israel return the Golan Heights which it conquered in the 1967 war, and Damascus, which used Hizbullah as a proxy during Israel's occupation of south Lebanon, still allows weapons from Iran to flow to Hizbullah.

Since Israel pulled out of Lebanon in May 2000, relative quiet has descended on the border between the two countries, punctuated by the occasional Hizbullah attack. Israel, however, says the Shi'ite group is armed with thousands of katyusha rockets, some of them with a range that can reach the coastal city of Haifa.