Syria pans US over Israeli air violations

Published on Sunday 9 September 2007 00:40

THE United States was yesterday accused of encouraging Israel's violation of Syrian airspace.

Damascus has said that Israeli jets broke the sound barrier flying over northern Syria before dawn on Thursday, then "dropped munitions" onto deserted areas after being shot at by Syria's air defences.

It is still unclear exactly what happened, and Syria has stopped short of accusing Israel of purposely bombing its territory. An Israeli spokesman has said he could not comment on military operations.

But the influential Syrian newspaper Tishrin said in a front-page editorial yesterday: "This new Israeli hostile operation was carried out in co-ordination between Washington and Tel Aviv."

The paper said US silence can only be interpreted as an "overt and scandalous encouragement of Israel".

In Washington, the US State Department has made no specific comment on the incident, citing a lack of details about what happened. Some officials suggested the administration of President George W Bush did not want to stoke tensions further by taking sides between Israel and Syria.

The incident came after a summer of mounting tensions, which have fed worries of a military conflict erupting between Syria and Israel. Damascus accused Israel last month of seeking a pretext for war, and the Israelis are keeping a close watch on Syrian troop movements.

Both sides have insisted they want no conflict along the disputed frontier.

However, Syria fears that it is being squeezed out of a US-brokered Middle-East peace conference that is planned for November, and the country will be left at a disadvantage in the standoff with Israel.