“Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah are preparing for summer war”

“Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah are preparing for summer war”

4/1/2007 6:00:00 PM GMT

http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=13518

Syria, Iran and the Hezbollah are preparing for a war in the summer, in case the U.S. strikes Iran, Yedioth Ahronoth quoted Head of Israeli Military Intelligence Major General Amos Yadlin as saying.

"We are not speaking of preparations for a war to be carried out at their (Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah) own initiative. Their deployments, in our opinion, are those of a defensive nature," Yaldin said.

He further suggested that military preparations by Hezbollah, Iran and Syria stem from a deep belief that the U.S. is planning to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities this summer.

He said that the three parties believe that Israel would also be involved in such conflict, and that they are not expected to initiate the war.

"They fear military action initiated by the Americans, whom they anticipate to be planning an attack against Iran in the summer," he added.

Yadlin’s remarks, made in his briefing at the government's weekly cabinet meeting, followed a statement by Dr. Arieh Eldad, member of the Israeli Knesset, in which he said that Israel will be at war with the Lebanese resistance movement this summer.

Dr Eldad admitted that "Hezbollah is becoming stronger every day,"

"They are rebuilding their ammunition stores, their medium and long missiles. They are going back to their bunkers in the south of Lebanon."

Yadlin referred to the 1967 Six-Day War, the armed conflict that broke out in June 1967 between Israel and the Arab states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, suggesting that a similar war could take place despite that fact that neither side is interested or ready for such a war.

"We are closely following theses preparations, with concern that the parties can incorrectly interpret specific movement of forces in the region. I wish to remind you of the Six-Day War - when a war that no one wanted broke out as a result of the involvement of many players,".

"We need to be one side prepared, but on the other hand to be careful such steps will not result to erroneous thinking on our part."

There is a growing concern among members of the United States military, and in the international community that Washington could be planning for another war in the region, this time against Iran, to stop it from practicing its legal right, under the Nuclear-Non Proliferation Treaty, to pursue peaceful nuclear technology.

U.S. and European intelligence agencies and Israel claim that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons, charges that had been repeatedly denied by the Islamic Republic which asserts that its nuclear program is solely aimed at peaceful purposes.

President Bush himself hasn’t ruled out using the military option to stop what he usually describes as the “Iranian nuclear threat”.

-- AJP and agencies