Syrian might on decline, Israeli says

— Syrian rebels control almost all the villages near the frontier with the Israelheld Golan Heights, the Israeli defense minister said Wednesday, putting the conflict dangerously close to the Jewish state and raising the possibility of an armed clash with the region’s strongest power.

INTERACTIVE

Uprising in Syria

During a tour of the Golan Heights, Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave a scathing assessment of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces and said Israel will remain “vigilant and alert.”

“Almost all of the villages, from the foot of this ridge to the very top, are already in the hands of the Syrian rebels,” said Barak, who was accompanied by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The Syrian army is displaying ever-diminishing efficiency.”

The civil war in Syria has renewed tensions over the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria in 1967. Despite hostility between the two countries, Syria has been careful to keep the border quiet since the 1973 Mideast war.

But in recent days, Israeli troops have fired into Syria twice after apparently stray mortar shells flew into Israelheld territory. On Wednesday, an Israeli helicopter was patrolling the border area, and gunfire could be heard. The source of the gunfire was not immediately clear.

While it is widely believed that Assad does not want to pick a fight with Israel, there are fears the Syrian leader may try to draw Israel into the fighting in a bout of desperation. Israeli officials believe it is only a matter of time before Syrian rebels topple the longtime leader.

Israeli political scientist Dore Gold, an informal adviser to Netanyahu, said it’s difficult to assess whether Israel is better off with rebels in control along the border.

“The forces fighting the Assad government are made up of diverse elements. And to make a judgment whether Israel should be more or less worried, that would require having a very precise picture of what’s going on there, which we don’t,” he said. “But it’s no secret that among the Syrian rebels are forces that identify with al-Qaida, and are a cause of concern.”

A buffer zone lines the Israeli border with Syria. Beyond the border on the Syrian side is a 46-mile stretch where no military forces other than U.N. forces are permitted.

Israeli military officials said Barak’s assessment depicted a situation that is not entirely new, and that rebels have held those villages for several weeks. It was not clear how many villages the rebels hold along the Golan Heights, which is about 40 miles from the Syrian capital of Damascus.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss the sensitive information, said the situation is dynamic and could change easily, with the villages returning to Assad’s hands.

The violence in Syria, which has killed more than 36,000 people since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, threatens to inflame an already combustible region. The fighting already has spilled into Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

On Wednesday, Syrian troops used aircraft and artillery to try to dislodge rebels from a town next to the border with Turkey, as Ankara warned it would retaliate against any airspace violations.

An Associated Press journalist in the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar saw Syrian airstrikes in the adjacent Syrian town of Ras al-Ayn, where rebels say they have ousted troops loyal to Assad.

Deadly airstrikes began several days ago, and many casualties were taken to Turkey for treatment. Local officials said as many as 30 people have died since Monday. The journalist also saw Syrian forces shelling woods near Ras al-Ayn from where rebels had been firing.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the fighting in Syria into neighboring Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.

Turkish media, including the Anadolu news agency, said several villages west of Ceylanpinar have been evacuated to protect residents from any spillover of the fighting in Syria.

Ismet Yilmaz, Turkey’s defense minister, indicated that military force would be used in response to any incursions by Syrian aircraft.

Over the weekend, Syria’s splintered rebel factions agreed to a U.S.-backed plan to unite under a new umbrella group that seeks a common voice and strategy against Assad’s regime.

President Barack Obama said he’s encouraged the opposition has formed a new, more representative leadership council, but the U.S. isn’t ready to recognize the group as a “government in exile” or to arm it.

“We consider them a legitimate representative of the aspirations of the Syrian people,” Obama said at a news conference at the White House.

France was the first Western country to formally recognize the newly formed opposition coalition as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

Obama said the U.S. wanted to make sure the group “is committed to a democratic Syria, an inclusive Syria, a moderate Syria.” He also said the U.S. isn’t considering sending weapons to the opposition because of concerns the arms might fall into the hands of extremists.

Information for this article was contributed by Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Lauren E. Bohn, Mehmet Guzel and Matthew Lee of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 11/15/2012

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