Syria's stealth strategy

Insight on the News, June 21, 1999 by Yedidya Atlas

The question is whether Syria has ceased to support terrorism -- as the White House claims -- or is conducting business as usual, aiding and abetting international criminals.

No sooner was Ehud Barak elected prime minister of Israel than Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was on the phone -- urging the new leader to jump-start stalled negotiations between Israel and Syria. Albright's determination to promote the ailing peace process in the face of Syria's consistent anti-American policies underscores the apparent deliberate blindness of the Clinton administration's Middle East policy.

"We want to see a comprehensive peace process go forward," she said, "which means that not only in addition to the Palestinian track, that there be an invigorated Syrian and Lebanese track also."

Ironically, the State Department's annual review of world terrorism was released shortly before Albright's statement. In a section titled "States Sponsoring Terrorism," the report maintains: "There is no evidence that Syrian officials have engaged directly in planning or executing international terrorist attacks since 1986. Syria, nonetheless, continues to provide safe haven and support to several terrorist groups, allowing some to maintain training camps or other facilities on Syrian territory.... Although Damascus claims to be committed to the Middle East peace process, it has not acted to stop anti-Israeli attacks by Hezbollah and Palestinian rejectionist groups in southern Lebanon."

According to a May 3, 1999, report by Middle East Newsline, a daily investigative news service, Syria has constructed a network of tunnels throughout the country to conceal its arsenal of ballistic missiles. Quoting regional intelligence sources who declined to be identified, the service asserted that Damascus received technology and other assistance from North Korea to construct its underground labyrinth -- a network similar to that built by Pyongyang to conceal its own nuclear missiles. Donald Rumsfeld, former U.S. defense secretary and chairman of the Committee to Assess the Ballistic Threat to the United States, recently confirmed that countries such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq have managed to hide their missile-development programs underground.

What has Syria wrought, exactly? Sources claim it has completed five tunnels and is constructing another nine to conceal 1,000 Scud C missiles (range: 500 km). North Korea also is helping Syria to develop the Scud D missile (range: 700 km). In addition, Syria has produced nonconventional warheads for its missile arsenal -- warheads capable of delivering the nerve-agent sarin, for example.

Meanwhile, The Times of London (March 8) reports Syrian plans to ship $90 million worth of military equipment to Iraq under a secret deal forged by intelligence services. The Iraqi Army has faced a severe shortage of spare parts since the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the subsequent international arms embargo. Under the new agreement, Syria will convert spare parts -- including engines for Russian-made tanks and tracks for armored vehicles -- for use by its neighbor and will supply auxiliary parts for antiaircraft radar facilities, aircraft, trucks and helicopters damaged by U.S. and British bombing.

Damascus has wielded terrorist tactics in many ways through the decades, changing strategies in re-sponse to geopolitical developments and international relations, particularly with regard to the United States. The fact is, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad has employed terrorism systematically since his rise to power in 1970. Strategically, the intensive use of terrorism has allowed the Assad regime to advance its interests both domestically and internationally: It has used terrorism to apply pressure on its opposition in the Arab world; it has used terrorism to strengthen the "Greater Syria" concept being carried out in Lebanon; and, of course, it has used terrorism to further its strategic interests in the conflict with Israel.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Syria openly supported a wide gamut of left-winged and socialist-oriented terrorist organizations that maintained training camps and base operations in Syrian-occupied Lebanon, as well as in Syria proper. Syrian military intelligence blatantly gave tactical and logistic support to terrorist groups such as the "Saiqa" organization (which operated under the name "Revolutionary Eagles" and was wholly controlled by Syria), the "Abu Nidal" group, and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

Syria also planned and ordered terrorist attacks that led to the murders of Lebanese Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt (March 16, 1977) and Lebanese president-elect Bashir Gemayel (Sept. 14, 1982).

The use of terror by the Assad regime was not limited to Lebanon or even the Middle East. Syrian-directed terrorists also targeted Westerners, primarily Americans and the French -- recall the 1979 attacks against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and Lebanon and the American Consulate in Istanbul, as well as the 1983 car bombing of the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut that killed 241 Americans. Opposition leaders to the Syrian dictator were systematically hunted down and murdered throughout Europe.