Yadlin: Israel will act on any Syria arms transfers

INSS director to 'Washington Post': Israel will act on transfers from Syria to Lebanon; cautions each strike raises escalation risk.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
AMOS YADLIN 311 (R) (photo credit: Gil Magen/Reuters)
AMOS YADLIN 311 (R)
(photo credit: Gil Magen/Reuters)
"Any time Israel will have reliable intelligence that this is going to be transferred from Syria to Lebanon, it will act," the director of the Institute for National Security Studies, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, told the Washington Post on Saturday. 
Yadlin told the paper that Israeli responses to potential weapons transfers may not happen automatically, but "as the Syrian army becomes weaker and Hezbollah grows more isolated because of the loss of its Syrian patron, it makes sense that this will continue."
According to Yadlin, there are four types of weapons whose transfer to militant groups would not be tolerated: advanced air defense systems, ballistic missiles, sophisticated shore-to-sea missiles and chemical weapons, the Washington Post quoted him as saying.
Yadlin cautioned that every Israeli strike would raise the risk of escalation. "The decision makers have to reevaluate every time," Yadlin warned. "It’s not a mathematical equation," the Washington Post quoted Yadlin as saying.
Last week, the Lebanese Army claimed 12 Israel Air Force planes flew over Lebanon between Thursday and Friday. According to the army, the IAF jets entered Lebanese airspace at 10:30 p.m. and flew over various parts of the country, finally departing at 1:15 a.m.
The army also said that the Israeli reconnaissance planes flew over the Nakoura area in southern Lebanon for several hours.
The report log ends on December 31, and thus does not address the possible use of Lebanese airspace in a strike on a Syrian weapons cache on January 31, which has been attributed to Israel.
US officials have said that the weapons destroyed in the alleged IAF strike were SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles and launchers headed for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The transfer of those weapons would constitute a violation of Resolution 1701.


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