-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Israel preparing for summer offensive Intelligence points to escalation of conflict into 'regional war' ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- By Jon Dougherty © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com Israeli gunship attacks against Palestinian "Force 17" buildings and personnel marked the beginning of what sources say is the Jewish state's preparations for defending itself against a summer offensive that could explode into a regional conflict. Israel's March 28 helicopter gunship attacks against Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Force 17 elite guard "was not simply in response to the disastrous series of Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians during the week," said a report by DEBKA-Net-Weekly on Friday. Rather, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to launch the attacks "was influenced most of all by intelligence reports coming in from the Arab League summit conference that opened in Amman on March 27," the report said, rather than simply because Palestinian terrorists had stepped up attacks against Israel in recent weeks. Sources said that Arafat, along with Iraqi Vice President Izzat Ibrahim and Syrian President Bashar Assad, "indicated that the last knots had been tied for launching a regional war, confirming the warnings issuing from sections of Israeli intelligence these last months," said the report. Israeli intelligence said the Palestinian leader's efforts "went beyond Arafat's habitual maneuvers to draw the region into a general conflagration," thereby prompting Sharon and top Israeli military leaders to develop long-range military plans to circumvent, or at least blunt, any future attacks by combined Arab forces. "In the name of pounding and disabling Arafat's machine of terror, the Israeli army is preparing a phased campaign that will at the same time improve its vantage points in readiness for a regional war," the report said. "Control of 'A Areas' of the West Bank currently under Palestinian jurisdiction could give Israel the strategic edge against invasion from the East or the North." Occupation of those areas, DEBKA-Net-Weekly said, would "happen quite soon" because intelligence sources said "an external Arab offensive is in the cards by early summer." Prior to seeing the new intelligence reports, Sharon was said to be confident that he "only had Arafat to deal with," and that he was "confident he could out-general" the Palestinian leader as he had in 1982. Sharon, DEBKA-Net-Weekly said, reportedly realized, however, that any military effort aimed solely at Arafat's forces still would be neither quick nor painless. "Arafat got it right therefore when he accused Sharon of declaring war on him and his men. But he missed the point when he accused Israeli chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz of preparing a 100-day war," the report said. Sources told the Mideast intelligence weekly that Sharon and his advisers are "estimating a time scale of at least 180 days - longer if the entire region is caught up in the conflict." Ultimately, the report said, Sharon seeks to eliminate Arafat from the region and take away his legitimacy and political clout, thereby replacing him with a more moderate Palestinian leader willing to agree to a series of drawn agreements aimed at settling differences between Jews and Palestinians. "The Israeli tactic earlier in March to encircle and blockade 25 Palestinian population clusters of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, so as to immobilize terrorists, gunmen and ambush artists and cut off their routes and access to command posts, was a trial skirmish to test the opposition's mettle," the report said. "It rehearsed projected maneuvers for isolating Palestinian population centers from zones likely to become front lines, especially in the Jordan Rift Valley and the Israel-Lebanese frontier, as well as from Israeli Arab concentrations in Israel proper, through which hostile forces can reach Israel's coastal population conurbations," said the intelligence weekly. Wednesday's air rocketing of Force 17 sites in Ramallah, Gaza, Dir Balah and Khan Yunis, was the second stage of Sharon's plan, the report said. "Round three began the day after on Thursday, March 29, when Israeli tanks stationed near encircled Palestinian locations, went into action in Hebron. Groups of armed Palestinians creeping into the hilltop district of Abu Sneineh district drew fire from the tank cannons," said the report. "The district was ordered evacuated Monday, March 26, after a Palestinian sniper with telescope shot dead an Israeli baby in the Jewish quarter below." The fourth "round" is likely to begin next week, DEBKA-Net-Daily said, quoting its sources. Then, "Israeli raider units, whether dropped by helicopter or landed on Gaza's Mediterranean coast from fast Israeli navy vessels, are due to storm Palestinian 'A Areas' on the West Bank and Gaza Strip for strikes against military and strategic targets…" Those targets will include Palestinian "bases, arsenals, command posts, electricity generators and broadcasting stations." Also, "special army and security units and snipers may also take out senior terror chiefs, resuming the assassination campaign launched and discontinued under the Barak administration," the report said. In the final stage, "Israeli tank units will knock over Palestinian positions controlling main highways to clear the way for the takeover of strategically important "A Areas" by large-scale Israeli forces," said the report. Sharon and Israeli leaders will also closely monitor the sentiment among Israel's 1.2 million Arabs as the Jewish state takes the offensive against Palestinian forces for the first time since Sharon took power. Israeli officials will work to assuage those concerns, the report said, but could be hampered by "numerous groups of hotheads in the Triangle, Galilee and the Negev," who "could inflame the masses and trigger wholesale disorder." "Their locations are awash with thousands of assault rifles, grenades, explosives and even machine guns and rockets, with enough trained men to use them," the report said. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. 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