Assad: Syria never planned to attack Israeli Golan, Israel trying to assassinate Hezbollah men
Syrian president tells Foreign Affairs magazine that Israel has been attacking Syria for two years 'without any reason.'
Syria never planned to attack the Israeli side of the Golan Heights, Syrian President Bashar Assad claimed in an interview published Monday, saying that Israel had sought to undermine the Syrian army to benefit those fighting to bring down his own regime and kill Hezbollah members.
"Never has an operation against Israel happened through the Golan Heights since the cease-fire in 1974. It has never happened," Assad said. "So for Israel to allege that there was a plan for an operation—that’s a far cry from reality, just an excuse, because they wanted to assassinate somebody from Hezbollah."
The embattled president's interview to Foreign Policy magazine comes a week after the IDF raised its alert level along the border with Syria and Lebanon, following a strike attributed to Israel that killed senior Hezbollah and Iranian officers,
Assad rejected the argument that Israel only took action in Syria when it felt its own defense interests were being threatened.
"That’s not true, because they’ve been attacking Syria now for nearly two years, without any reason," he said.
He also claimed that Israel was clearly offering assistance to the Syrian opposition forces who have been battling the Assad regime for almost four years.
"They are supporting the rebels in Syria. It’s very clear," the president said. "Because whenever we make advances in some place, they make an attack in order to undermine the army. It’s very clear. That’s why some in Syria joke: 'How can you say that al Qaeda doesn’t have an air force? They have the Israeli air force.'”
Asked whether Hezbollah receives arm shipments from Iran by way of Syria, Assad responded, "They (Israel) attacked army positions. What is the relation between Hezbollah and the army?
Regarding talks of negotiations between the Assad regime and Syrian rebels hosted in Russia, Assad told Foreign Affairs that he would meet with opposition groups but that not all of these groups represent the Syrian people.
"Opposition means national; it means working for the interests of the Syrian people. It cannot be an opposition if it’s a puppet of Qatar or Saudi Arabia or any Western country, including the United States, paid from the outside. It should be Syrian. We have a national opposition. I’m not excluding it; I’m not saying every opposition is not legitimate. But you have to separate the national and the puppets. Not every dialogue is fruitful," said Assad.
Assad also claimed that foreign interests, among them France, do not want to see negotiations between Assad and rebel groups succeed. "Let me be frank: some of the groups are puppets, as I said, of other countries," Assad said. "They have to implement that agenda, and I know that many countries, like France, for example, do not have any interest in making that conference succeed. So they will give them orders to make them fail. You have other personalities who only represent themselves; they don’t represent anyone in Syria."
Assad also said that Obama was mistaken in believing there is a "moderate opposition" in Syria and said: "Most of them joined al Qaeda, and some of them rejoined the army recently. During the last week, a lot of them left those groups and came to the army."
Assad also said that funding for rebels coming from Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia still continues and prevents the conflict from ending.
Warning to Hezbollah
Meanwhile, the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat quoted Western diplomats as saying that Israel has sent a sharp warning to Lebanon and Hezbollah that any attack against Israeli institutions in Israel or abroad would elicit a harsh response.According Al-Hayat, the Western diplomats said that the majority of government officials in Lebanon have been updated with news of the warning from more than one ambassador.
According to one of the diplomats, the message that was sent said that "Israel places on Hezbollah responsibility for any attack against its institutions and its citizens, including Israeli centers anywhere in the world."
Meanwhile, Syrian opposition sources told Arab media last week that Hezbollah has been in Quneitra since 2013, and that its men often arrive at secret bases in the area.
Director of the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, told the London-based Asharq Alawsat newspaper that, "Hezbollah men and Iranian army men planned an attack in the Golan against Israeli targets."
He said Assad's forces have minimized their presence in the area, giving the reins to Hezbollah after previous failures of the Syrian regime's forces in the area.
Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Mohammed Allahdadi was killed with a Hezbollah commander and the son of the group's late military leader, Imad Mughniyeh, in the alleged IAF attack on a Hezbollah convoy near the Israeli Golan Heights border.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006, said six of its members died in the strike.
Roi Kais contributed to this article.
