Middle East Stirring Up Rumors of War

By William E. Smith

"We have no intention of attacking Syria, and Syria has no chance of defeating Israel." So said Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres last week, for the moment allaying fears that Israel might be on the verge of making a pre- emptive strike against its strongest Arab neighbor. Almost simultaneously, Syria's Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam declared that the Damascus government of President Hafez Assad "is not seeking aggression," though he added that Syria would "respond with all the potential it possesses" if attacked. Those statements were intended to put to rest, at least temporarily, a flurry of war talk that has rocked the region for the past fortnight. But they hardly resolved the mounting problems between two traditional adversaries. Concluded Middle East Expert William Quandt of the Brookings Institution: "Both Israel and Syria have got it in their minds that they will fight another major war, and both are very seriously planning for that day."

The latest crisis was sparked by fresh allegations that Syria may have played a role in recent terrorist attacks in Europe and the Mediterranean, even though in the past the Assad government has consistently deplored such assaults against civilians. The charges, pressed by the Israelis but confirmed in some particulars by some Western intelligence agencies, link Syria with the recent attempt by a Jordanian-born Palestinian to plant a bomb aboard a London-Tel Aviv El Al flight with 360 passengers aboard. Evidence also surfaced that could tie the Syrians to a West Berlin explosion that destroyed the German-Arab Friendship Society, and possibly to a subsequent blast at La Belle discotheque in the same city. The nightclub bombing, which killed a U.S. soldier and a Turkish woman and wounded another 230 people, was one of the terrorist outrages that Ronald Reagan blamed on Libya and cited as justification for the April 15 U.S. raids on Libyan targets. It is conceivable that both Syria and Libya were involved in the discotheque bombing, since some Arab terrorist organizations have links with both countries.

Even more than the attacks in West Berlin, the close call at London's Heathrow Airport, where an alert Israeli security agent found an explosive device in the luggage of a terrorist's unsuspecting Irish girlfriend, raised questions about the war risks the Damascus regime may be willing to undertake --and about Assad's motives. Had the plane been destroyed, with hundreds of casualties, the tragedy would almost certainly have led to some kind of Israeli military response.

The latest allegations came at a time of mounting unrest between Israel and Syria. In recent weeks the Syrians have been building new tank and artillery emplacements in southern Lebanon. As Peres put it, Syrian forces have been steadily "creeping" toward Israel's northern border. Only last week Syrian- backed Lebanese guerrillas fired two Katyusha rockets across the border, wounding an Israeli and two of his children in Upper Galilee. Israel's costly 1982 war in Lebanon was supposed to have stopped such attacks.

At the root of the latest Israeli complaints about Damascus is an impressive Syrian military buildup, which has been continuing with the aid of the Soviet Union since 1982. During that period the Syrian armed forces have grown from 242,500 to more than 400,000. By contrast, Israel's standing army has 176,000 men and women, with an additional 300,000 active reservists who can be mobilized within 36 hours. The Syrians, who lost 88 planes during the first week of combat with Israel in 1982, have substantially refurbished their air force, which now boasts 660 Soviet-made combat aircraft. Thanks to Moscow's generosity, they also possess 3,800 tanks, including more than 1,000 of the advanced T-72s. That gives them approximate parity with the Israelis, who have 680 fighters and 3,800 tanks. Syria has also significantly upgraded its antiaircraft defenses, which include 80 surface-to-air missile batteries and 50 mobile launchers.

Equally worrisome to the Israelis is Syria's acquisition of powerful, highly accurate, Soviet medium-range SS-21, missiles. In the event of a surprise attack, SS-21s could knock out airfields and tank and artillery depots and seriously disrupt Israeli mobilization. The assumption on all sides is that Syria could not win a war against Israel. But the Syrians just might consider a military strike if they believed that it would lead to the return of all or part of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria during the 1967 war.

Given the military threat posed by Syria, however limited it may be, the Israelis have launched a campaign to portray Damascus as the leading sponsor of international terrorism. According to the Israelis, the Palestinian arrested in London in the El Al case, Nezar Nawaf Mansur Hindawi, has told British investigators that he was trained in Damascus, traveled on a Syrian passport and was assisted by Syrian diplomats in carrying out the unsuccessful mission. The British government later expelled three Syrian diplomats after Damascus refused to allow them to be interrogated, and last week Syria retaliated by throwing out three Britons. Western intelligence officials were impressed by the sophisticated explosive device that Hindawi handed to his girlfriend. A thin layer of plastic explosives, in the same color as the lining of her handbag, had been built into the bag's bottom. The detonator was stored inside a calculator-watch and was not detected by the airport's X-ray machines. Says an American intelligence official: "The Syrians were planning the perfect crime. If the bomb had gone off, no clues would have led to them."

Hindawi, according to the Israelis, also said that his brother Ahmed Nawaf Mansur Hasi--who was subsequently arrested in West Germany in connection with the March 29 bombing of the German-Arab Friendship Society--had been operating under Syrian orders. West German police confirm that two of the three Palestinians arrested in that case admitted receiving explosives from the Syrian embassy in East Berlin. U.S. officials, however, find it odd that Damascus would have been involved in an attack on an organization that had been friendly to Syria in the past. The link between Damascus and the discotheque bombing is more tenuous, but West German police pointed out that the explosive devices in the two Berlin attacks were of similar size and construction.

The Reagan Administration is not convinced that Hafez Assad personally authorized the London operation or the West Berlin attacks, and the Israelis have carefully refrained from making that charge. Says a senior U.S. official: "If he did, it is a degree of risk taking unusual for him. He is not usually reckless." In fact, even the Israelis have regarded the Syrian leader as someone they could do business with. Assad also helped gain the release of the 39 American TWA hostages in Beirut last year, and according to some U.S. officials, has tried unsuccessfully to help secure the freedom of the kidnaped Americans and Frenchmen still held by Muslim extremists in Lebanon.

It is altogether possible, however, that Assad has decided to heighten tensions with Israel for his own purposes. His country's economy is a shambles following his enormous military expenditures, and the drop in worldwide oil prices has made it more difficult for him to secure aid from other Arab states. At home he is fighting off a challenge to his regime, which is dominated by his small Muslim sect, the Alawites. For the past two months Syria has been plagued with bombings apparently aimed at the Alawite community, which comprises only 13.5% of the country's population of 10.6 million.

Assad is presumably worried about political pressure from the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood in Syria as well as military pressure from Christian and Shi'ite fundamentalist groups in Lebanon. But he is also believed to be upset about the U.S. raid on Libya last month and about President Reagan's subsequent comment that some kind of retaliation might be taken against Syria if a terrorist link could be proved. Finally, Assad must be concerned about the poor performance of Libya's Soviet-supplied SA-5 missiles, since the same weapons are the backbone of Syria's air defense. If U.S. electronics could jam them easily, as happened during the April 15 attack, so could Israel's.

It is axiomatic in the volatile Middle East that if pressure is not being exerted toward achieving peace, there will be pressure among ancient enemies to make war. A senior U.S. official admits that the failure of the peace process is to blame for much of the new tension. Says he: "We have to find a process that offers something better than another bitter, inconclusive military confrontation." Indeed, though the threat of hostilities may have receded by week's end, until a real peace can be achieved, there will be a risk of renewed conflict in the region.

With reporting by Scott MacLeod/Cairo and Johanna McGeary/Washington