Tensions peaked again around Syria's borders with Israel, Turkey and Jordan as the first two embarked on large-scale mobilization maneuvers near those borders Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 5-6 and the Jordanian armed forces prepared to follow suit. debkafile's military and intelligence sources report that the United States and Turkey urged Jordan's King Abdullah to hold a similar maneuver or reinforce his units on the Syrian border. But Bashar Assad decided that being forced to build up his forces on Syria's borders with Turkey and Israel was enough and a Jordanian exercise must be stopped. Thursday, he sent his powerful brother-in-law Gen. Asef Shawqat to Amman with a stern warning for the king: If the Hashemite Kingdom lines up with Turkey and Israel and deploys extra troops on the Syrian border, Assad will order his air force to bomb Jordanian towns. And if Israel intervenes to engage Syrian bombers, Damascus would launch surface missiles against Jordanian cities.
It was the second time this week that the Syrian ruler had threatened to punish an enemy with ground-to-ground missiles. Tuesday, Oct. 4, debkafile revealed that Assad had threatened to demolish Tel Aviv by missiles within six hours of an attack on Syria. Jordan's Abdullah told Gen. Shawqat he agreed to give up his planned military exercise, but not his opposition to Assad actions.
In Washington, Ankara and Jerusalem, the Syrian message to Jordan was taken as an implied warning to Turkey and Israel alike that Assad had no intention of taking their military exercises lying down either and a military response was coming.
read the rest here
Seems to me like Assad's fears are legitimate...
No comments:
Post a Comment