Israel Fears Danger from Both Syria and Iran and Vows to Strike at Any Sign of Syrian Chemical Weapons

Israel warns of attack on Syrian chemical weapons

January 28, 2013

AP - Israel could launch a pre-emptive strike to stop Syria's chemical weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hezbollah or al-Qaida inspired groups, officials said Sunday.

The warning came as the military moved a rocket defense system to a main northern city, and Israel's premier warned of dangers from both Syria and Iran.

Israel has long expressed concerns that Syrian President Bashar Assad, clinging to power during a 22-month civil war, could lose control over his chemical weapons.

Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said Sunday that Israel's top security officials held a special meeting last week to discuss Syria's chemical weapons arsenal. The fact of the meeting, held the morning after a national election, had not been made public before.

Shalom told the Army Radio station that the transfer of weapons to violent groups, particularly the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah, would be a game changer.

"It would be crossing a line that would demand a different approach, including even action," he said. Asked whether this might mean a pre-emptive attack, he said: "We will have to make the decisions."

Israel has kept out of the civil war that has engulfed Syria and killed more than 60,000 people, but it is concerned that violence could spill over from its northern border into Israel.

Israel deployed its Iron Dome rocket defense system in the northern city of Haifa on Sunday. The city was battered by Hezbollah rocket fire during a war in the summer of 2006. The military called the deployment "routine."

Iron Dome, an Israel-developed system that shoots down incoming short-range rockets, was used to defend Israeli cities during a round of hostilities with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, on Israel's southern flank, last November.

Yisrael Hasson, a lawmaker and former deputy head of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency, said Israel was closely following developments in Syria to make sure chemical weapons don't "fall into the wrong hands."

"Syria has a massive amount of chemical weapons, and if they fall into hands even more extreme than Syria like Hezbollah or global jihad groups it would completely transform the map of threats," Hasson told Army Radio.

"Global jihad" is the term Israel uses for forces influenced by al-Qaida. Syria's rebels include al-Qaida-allied groups.

Syria has rarely acknowledged possessing chemical weapons.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to threats from Syria and Iran at a Cabinet meeting Sunday. Iran is Syria's main regional ally.

"We must look around us, at what is happening in Iran and its proxies and at what is happening in other areas, with the deadly weapons in Syria, which is increasingly coming apart," he said.

Israel views Iran as an existential threat because of its nuclear and missile programs and support for violent anti-Israeli groups in Lebanon and Gaza, as well as repeated references by Iranian leaders to Israel's destruction. Iran denies it is seeking to build atomic weapons, insisting its nuclear program is for civilian purposes.

On Friday, Israeli Channel 2 TV broadcast an interview with a former Iranian diplomat who defected to the West in 2010. He warned that if Tehran gets nuclear weapons, it would use them against Israel. He did not provide evidence.

Part of Mohammad Reza Heydari's job was to draft foreign scientists to work on Tehran's nuclear program and he brought many from North Korea into Iran, the report said.

Heydari spoke from Oslo, where he has received political asylum.

Israel vows Syria strike at any sign of chemical arms transfer

January 28, 2013

Reuters - Any sign that Syria's grip on its chemical weapons is slipping as it battles an armed uprising could trigger Israeli military strikes, Israel's vice premier said on Sunday.

Silvan Shalom confirmed a media report that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had last week convened a meeting of security chiefs to discuss the civil war in Syria and the state of its suspected chemical arsenal.

Israel and NATO countries say Syria has stocks of chemical warfare agents at four sites. Syria is cagey about whether it has such arms but says if it had it would keep them secure and use them only to fend off foreign attack.

The Israeli meeting on Wednesday had not been publicly announced and was seen as unusual as it came while votes were being counted from Israel's parliamentary election the day before, which Netanyahu's party list won narrowly.

Should Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas or rebels battling forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad obtain Syria's chemical weapons, Shalom told Israel's Army Radio: "It would dramatically change the capabilities of those organizations."

Such a development would be "a crossing of all red lines that would require a different approach, including even preventive operations," he said, alluding to military intervention for which Israeli generals have said plans have been readied.

"The concept, in principle, is that this (chemical weapons transfer) must not happen," Shalom said. "The moment we begin to understand that such a thing is liable to happen, we will have to make decisions."

An Israeli television station, Channel 2, reported Syrian rebels appeared to be closing in on key chemical weapons sites in Al-Safir and Damascus, and showed photographs of an Israeli "Iron Dome" rocket interceptor battery deployed in northern Israel.

A military spokesman confirmed reports that two such batteries were moved to the Haifa area but insisted this was "not due to any specific security situation" but part of a routine of rotating these systems.

"COMING APART"

Addressing his cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu said he intended to put together "the broadest and most stable government as possible in order, first of all, to meet the significant security threats that face the State of Israel".

Difficult coalition talks could be ahead for Netanyahu with factions representing widely different sectors of the Jewish state's population.

In his public remarks at the cabinet session, Netanyahu pointed to "what is happening in Iran and its proxies and at what is happening in other areas, with the deadly weapons in Syria, which is increasingly coming apart.

"In the east, north and south, everything is in ferment and we must be prepared, strong and determined in the face of all possible developments," Netanyahu said, in apparent reference to Iran, Syria and Egypt.

Raising the regional stakes, Iran, among Assad's few allies and itself long the subject of Israeli military threats over its nuclear program, said on Saturday it would deem any attack on Syria an attack on itself.

Interviewed on Army Radio, Civil Defense Minister Avi Dichter said Syria was on the verge of collapse. But asked whether Israel perceived an imminent threat, Dichter said: 

"No, not yet. I suppose that when things pose a danger to us, the State of Israel will know about it."

France, among the most vocal backers of Syria's rebels, said last week there were no signs Assad was about to be overthrown.

An Israeli government security adviser told Reuters on Sunday Syria had taken new prominence in strategic planning "because of the imminence of the threat. There the WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) are ready and could be turned against us at short notice."

Syria is widely believed to have built up the arsenal to offset Israel's reputed nuclear weapons, among other reasons.