Global Policy Forum

By Priscilla Cheung

Syria demanded that the U.N. Security Council condemn Israel's airstrike against a purported terrorist training camp near Damascus, but the United States said it would not support any resolution that does not also criticize attacks against Israel. At an emergency meeting called at Syria's request Sunday, most council diplomats spoke out against both the airstrike and the suicide bombing in the Israeli port city of Haifa that killed 19 people and prompted Israel's retaliation.

However, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte focused his condemnation on the Haifa attack, while blaming Syria for harboring terrorists. "The United States believes that Syria is on the wrong side of the war on terrorism," he said. "We believe it is in Syria's interest, and in the broader interest of Middle East peace, for Syria to stop harboring and supporting the groups that perpetrate acts such as the one that occurred yesterday."

Negroponte's comments reflected Washington's frustration with Syria, which had gone out of its way to look helpful to the United States in the wake of the Iraq war but now appears less compliant. Syria says it has shut down the offices of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, two anti-Israel militant groups, but has not expelled its operatives. Meanwhile, the United States worries pro-Saddam Hussein fighters may be sneaking into Iraq across the Syrian border.

The European Union on Monday condemned "a very distressing weekend" of violence in the Middle East and said an Israeli air strike against a purported terrorist training camp in Syria was "unacceptable." EU spokeswoman Emma Udwin said the 15-nation bloc called for calm on all sides.

Russia appeared to give some support to the U.S. position on Monday, saying the proposed U.N. resolution condemning Israel should be reworked. "We believe it would benefit from a more balanced form," Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. "In particular, we think it should include a clause on the need to stop terrorist attacks in the region."

The attack on Sunday was the first Israeli strike deep within Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Arab League said the bombing "exposes the deteriorating situation in the region to uncontrollable consequences, which could drag the whole region into violent whirlpool."

The Islamic militant group Hamas said it fired 16 mortar shells at Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip overnight in retaliation for the Israeli airstrike. The Israeli army said it was checking the claim. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Hamas also said it would also carry out more attacks in Israel. "Any aggression against an Arab or Islamic country is an aggression against the Palestinian people and, God willing, our response to this aggression will be decisive," read a statement on a Hamas web site. "We call on our fighters ... to respond quickly, and in the heart of the Zionist entity, to this serious escalation," it said.

The Bush administration urged restraint in the Middle East. President Bush telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to offer condolences for the Haifa bombing and the two agreed on a need to continue fighting terrorism and "on the need to avoid heightened tension in the region at this time," said Ken Lesius, a White House spokesman. It seemed unlikely Syria would retaliate. It has 380,000 active duty soldiers, but Israel holds a technological edge. Israel is more worried about Syria's growing missile program and its ability to launch chemical and poison weapons into Israel's cities.

Leaders of Islamic Jihad and other militant groups are based in Syria, but Jihad on Sunday denied having any training bases there. Syrian villagers near the targeted site in Ein Saheb, 14 miles northwest of Damascus, said the camp had been used by Palestinian gunmen in the 1970s but was later abandoned. Plainclothes security officials banned journalists from approaching the camp. Dense trees blocked the site from view.

The raid was a dramatic new tactic for Israel in its attempts to stop Palestinian militants. Closures, assassinations and military strikes into Palestinian areas have failed to stop suicide attacks, and Washington strongly opposes expelling Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as Israel has threatened. In the West Bank, Arafat declared a state of emergency and installed an emergency Cabinet with Ahmed Qureia as prime minister.

At the United Nations, Negroponte did not say whether the United States would exercise its veto power against the proposed resolution criticizing Israel. Another diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no one had threatened a veto. Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad of Syria, the council's only Arab member, urged his colleagues to adopt the resolution condemning the "military aggression carried by Israel against the sovereignty and territory" of Syria. The document also demands that Israel stop acts "which might lead to a dangerous deterioration that threatens regional and international peace and security." On Monday, China joined countries criticizing the airstrike. Its foreign ministry said "China is shocked at the Israeli military attack on the targets within Syria's territory and strongly condemns it."

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