ARABS-ISRAEL - Oct. 6 - Sharon-Assad Charges.

After Israel's Oct.5 air raid near Damascus (in response to Islamic Jihad's Oct.4 suicide bombing - see above & Recorder 14), PM Sharon warns Syria that Israel would "strike in every place and with any means" to defend its citizens. (Sharon's remarks at a memorial ceremony for the Israeli dead of the 1973 war were seen as a further warning against states that support the Palestinian militants). Pres. Assad told the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat the Israeli government was trying to drag the region into new wars because repeated conflicts were its only way to remain in power. He dismissed US pressure on Damascus as an attempt by the Bush administration to "escape" its troubles in Iraq. He said he would continue to defy US demands for the expulsion of representatives of Palestinian factions who are based in Damascus, adding: "We have completely rejected the expulsion demands and for more than one reason, chiefly issues of principle. These people did not break Syrian law and did not hurt Syrian interests and they are, above all, not terrorists". (Sharon's warning came as the Israeli military reinforced units on the Lebanese border after an Israeli soldier was shot dead on Oct.6 by gunmen who fired on troops close to the town of Metula. A Lebanese boy was also killed in an explosion in a village near the border. But, significantly, Hizbollah promptly denied involvement in the killing of the Israeli soldier, causing speculation in Beirut that one of the Palestinian groups in Lebanon may have been involved in the flare-up on the Lebanese-Israeli border. These marked the first time any Lebanon-based organisation has launched a direct attack on Israeli territory since April 2002 - in what appears to be a Damascus-guided attempt to test the extent to which Sharon may go in provoking a war with Syria. Syria is seeking a UN resolution condemning the Israeli raid but several Security Council members want the draft to be more balanced. The US says it will veto any resolution that does not explicitly condemn Palestinian terrorism. The US said on Oct.5 it had been told of the Israeli raid only after it happened. But the lack of criticism of the Israeli action and the US insistence on Israel's right to defend itself even beyond its borders fuelled Arab suspicions that Washington was not opposed to the attack).