According to JID's intelligence sources, US Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld is considering plans to expand the global war on
terrorism with multi-pronged attacks against suspected militant
bases in countries such as Lebanon and Somalia. In a week in which
Israel launched airstrikes against Hizbullah positions, our
regional correspondent reports from Beirut.
Sending US troops into lawless Somalia would not be new, nor is it
likely to cause serious diplomatic waves. Covert US forces have
periodically infiltrated the country over the past two years to
conduct surveillance and even snatch suspects wanted for the
November 2002 suicide bomb attacks in Mombasa, Kenya: an incident
in which suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists bombed a hotel and mounted
an unsuccessful attack on an Israeli airliner with shoulder-fired
surface-to-air missiles.
However, sending US special forces into Lebanon - and in particular
an area like the Bekaa Valey (which is virtually Syrian territory)
and where the bulk of Damascus' military forces in Lebanon are
deployed - would be an entirely different matter. Deployment of US
forces in the area would almost certainly involve a confrontation
with Syrian troops.
That may well prove to be the objective, since the Bush
administration is currently stepping up pressure on the Damascus
regime in a bid to force it to cut off all support for radical
Palestinian groups that have been targeting Israel during the
three-year-old intifada. Washington also wants Syria to abandon its
weapons of mass destruction and to withdraw all its forces from
Lebanon, a virtual satellite since Syria moved in with tacit US
support in 1990 as part of a strategy to end Lebanon's civil
war.
The US administration has long considered Damascus as a prime
candidate for 'regime-change' (along with Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran
and possibly even Saudi Arabia). Syria, once a powerhouse of Arab
radicalism that could not be ignored, has been seriously weakened,
both militarily and politically. Washington may feel that the time
is coming to oust Bashir Al-Assad and the ruling generals.
Targeting Syria via Lebanon, the only concrete political influence
Damascus has to show following decades of radical diplomacy, could
prove to be a means to that end.
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