But is it true? And if it is, is that wrong?

Syria deploying rockets on border, say Israeli sources

JERUSALEM: Syria has positioned on its border with Israel thousands of medium- and long-range rockets capable of striking major towns across northern Israel, military and government sources said. This deployment, coupled with other recent reports of Syrian troop mobilization, is seen in Israel as an indication that Damascus may be preparing for future "low intensity warfare," they said.

The report comes two weeks after Israel held war games on the occupied Golan Heights.

The Syrian Army accelerated its deployment of medium- and long-range rockets in the wake of Israel's war with Lebanon in summer 2006.

"We have noticed that in recent months Syria has deployed hundreds, possibly thousands, of medium- and long-range rockets along the border with Israel," a military source said.

"Many of the rockets are hidden in underground chambers and in camouflaged silos, which make them very difficult to locate," the source said.

Three of the sources were from the military and two from the government, and all spoke on condition of anonymity. They said Syria has built a system of fortified underground tunnels along its border with Israel.

Most of the rockets deployed are 220 millimeter, with a range of 70 kilometers, and 302 millimeter rockets capable of striking targets at a distance of more than 100 kilometers.

The latter would be well within range of the main population centers in northern Israel such as Tiberias and Kiryat Shmona, as well as Israel's third-largest city of Haifa.

It is also believed Syria has deployed several FROG rocket launchers, with a 70-kilometer range in areas between the border and Damascus, 40 kilometers away.


According to the sources, such a massive deployment of well-entrenched rockets poses "a real strategic threat" to Israel.

While Syria concentrates most of its long-range surface-to-surface missile arsenal in the north of the country, its decision to deploy rockets so close to the border may indicate it is mulling an attack on Israel, experts say.

"Syrian President Bashar Assad realized after the Lebanon war that Israel was not as strong as it seemed and could be threatened by simple means rather than an advanced army," the director of the Begin-Saadat Center for Strategic Studies, Ephraim Inbar, told AFP.

Inbar, as well as the military sources, believe "Assad could be preparing for low intensity war, a type of war of attrition with Israel, where Syria fires several rockets against Israel without provoking full-fledged war."

"Israel has absolute superiority in several fields in warfare," a senior government official said.

"So Syria is investing in fields where it can have an edge. It has invested in recent years in anti-aircraft weapons, rockets, missiles and bunkers. The war in Lebanon proved to the Syrians they were right to do so."

Israel's military intelligence chief, Major General Amod Yadlin, told the government's annual intelligence assessment that "the chances of a full-scale war initiated by Syria are low, but the chances of Syria reacting militarily against Israeli military moves are high." - AFP

Original article posted here.