Baluarte
05-07-2013, 03:30 PM
Palestinian militants inside Syria have been told that the Assad regime will not stop them attacking targets in Israel, as the government in Damascus weighs its options in response to Israel's weekend airstrikes.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a group based in Damascus, said today that the Syrian authorities had told them to go ahead with attacks from the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights, which borders the Jewish state.
According to the left-leaning Israeli newspaper, Hareetz, Anwar Raja of the PFLP General Command in Damascus said the Assad's government had given the group "a green light to attack Israeli targets" from the Syrian territory.
The development comes as Syria and Hezbollah - the Islamist group based in Lebanon - weigh how to respond to the Israeli intervention. Syrian officials said earlier in the week that the Israeli action amounted to a 'declaration of war' though analysts are not persuaded that Syria has sufficient military might to inflict serious damage on Israel. It is not known what firepower the PFLP possess, but given Israel's military strength it is unlikely to amount to much that can do serious damage south of the border.
Israeli officials refuse to comment specifically on the weekend's action, but stress that any invention is not designed to topple the Syrian regime but to prevent Hezbollah, which fought a six-week long war in 2006, from getting advanced weapons systems.
The PFLP statement came as Iran said that the response to the Israeli strikes was a matter for Arab nations. Speaking in Amman, Tehran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said that Arab countries, "must stand by their brethren in Damascus".
So far, the large Palestinian population in Syria has resisted taking sides in the two-year old Syrian civil war, but the airstrikes on Friday and Sunday, which Damascus says destroyed three targets, have given groups such as the PFLP more impetus.
The half million Palestinian population in Syria has on occasion borne the brunt of the violence. Last December, for example, 25 people died after an airstrike hit a mosque in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.
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The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a group based in Damascus, said today that the Syrian authorities had told them to go ahead with attacks from the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights, which borders the Jewish state.
According to the left-leaning Israeli newspaper, Hareetz, Anwar Raja of the PFLP General Command in Damascus said the Assad's government had given the group "a green light to attack Israeli targets" from the Syrian territory.
The development comes as Syria and Hezbollah - the Islamist group based in Lebanon - weigh how to respond to the Israeli intervention. Syrian officials said earlier in the week that the Israeli action amounted to a 'declaration of war' though analysts are not persuaded that Syria has sufficient military might to inflict serious damage on Israel. It is not known what firepower the PFLP possess, but given Israel's military strength it is unlikely to amount to much that can do serious damage south of the border.
Israeli officials refuse to comment specifically on the weekend's action, but stress that any invention is not designed to topple the Syrian regime but to prevent Hezbollah, which fought a six-week long war in 2006, from getting advanced weapons systems.
The PFLP statement came as Iran said that the response to the Israeli strikes was a matter for Arab nations. Speaking in Amman, Tehran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said that Arab countries, "must stand by their brethren in Damascus".
So far, the large Palestinian population in Syria has resisted taking sides in the two-year old Syrian civil war, but the airstrikes on Friday and Sunday, which Damascus says destroyed three targets, have given groups such as the PFLP more impetus.
The half million Palestinian population in Syria has on occasion borne the brunt of the violence. Last December, for example, 25 people died after an airstrike hit a mosque in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.
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