'Lebanon, Syria, Israel Sit on Powder Keg Apt to Trigger Mideast Apocalypse'

Israel has struck back with dive-bombing air strikes and massive artillery and tank canon barrages targeting a cluster of Lebanese border towns, where a French officer from the U.N. Truce Observer Group was killed along with a Hizbullah irregular. A Swedish officer with the Observer unit was wounded along with a Lebanese translator.
However, the Israeli media said Monday the retaliation on Sunday was just a localized response and quoted government officials and the military establishment as holding Syria fully responsible for Hizbullah's attack and vowing to exact a heavy price from Damascus.

"This is a very serious incident and a very dangerous provocation for which Syria bears full responsibility, said Labor Party Leader Shimon Peres, who takes over as vice Premier to Ariel Sharon next week. "Israel has exercised self-restraint long enough."

"Responsibility for this attack lies with Hizbullah, Lebanon and Syria," he said. Hizbullah and its sponsors in Lebanon and Syria "have to decide whether they want to be in a triangle of peace or in a triangle of provocations and terrorism."

State run radio Israel said in airing the reaction of the Tel Aviv press that "Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Hizbullah are again sitting on a powder keg that could unleash a Middle East apocalypse if it explodes."

The attack was described by the local and international media the deadliest since Hizbullah killed two Israeli soldiers in the Shabaa Farms enclave six months ago. But the death of French Major Jean-Louis Valet contributed a heavier impact than any other previous operations since Israel evacuated occupied south Lebanon in May of 2000.

Milos Struger, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, said the Frenchman was "killed by shelling from the Israeli side of the Blue Line," the post-evacuation border line drawn by U.N. cartographers.

Hizbullah has made it plain in its communiqués that Sunday's attack was designed to dramatize the group's resentment of U.S. and French pressure to make the Beirut and Damascus governments bow to U.N. resolution 1559, which urged the termination of Syria's tutelage over Lebanon and the disarmament t of Hizbullah.

The flare-up also came hard on the heels of a threat by U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman in Beirut that the United States would add Lebanon to its list of rogue countries if it procrastinates any longer in disarming Hizbullah.(Naharnet-AFP, AP)