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Israel Warns Lebanon to Rein in Militants

Posted on: Monday, 6 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

An Israeli soldier was killed in an exchange of fire on the border with Lebanon on Monday, prompting Israeli officials to warn Lebanon and Syria to rein in anti-Israeli militants or face an escalation in the area.

The clash came amid heightened tensions between Israel and Syria, Lebanon's close ally, following Israel's air raid Sunday on what the Jewish state said was a Palestinian militant base deep inside Syria.

The Israeli army was on high alert along its northern border with Lebanon and Syria after Monday's shooting, Israel's Army Radio reported.

The shootings began when a sniper with the anti-Israeli militia Hezbollah fired toward Israeli soldiers on a routine patrol near the border with Lebanon not far from the Israeli town of Metulla, the Israeli army said. Soldiers returned fire, the army said.

But Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, said in a one-sentence statement faxed to The Associated Press in Beirut that it was not involved.

Lebanese security officials said two cars and a house in the Lebanese village of Kfar Kila were hit by the Israeli fire but that no one was injured.

"I was studying and suddenly shooting erupted, shattering glass at our home," said Sujud Faris, a 16-year-old Shiite Muslim girl who lives in Kfar Kila.

She and her younger brother and sister hid under the bed, she told AP after returning to their border home. There were several fresh bullet holes in the walls of the house.

An officer from the U.N. Interim Force In Lebanon, a peacekeeping force that regularly sends patrols along the Lebanese side of the border, said a U.N. water tanker truck was hit by three bullets. There were no injuries.

The head of Israel's northern command, Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz, warned Lebanon and Syria that a refusal to stop the Hezbollah activities would bring about Israeli retaliation.

"These actions are very dangerous for Lebanon and Syria ... and can bring about a serious deterioration in the situation," Gantz said at a news conference after the border shootings. "Syria is responsible for what happened here, by letting the terror groups act freely."

A senior Israeli military official said on condition of anonymity that Israel was considering further retaliation against Syria, Lebanon and Hezbollah.

The Israeli raid on Sunday against a reputed training camp of the militant group Islamic Jihad located 15 miles northwest of the Syrian capital, Damascus, came in response to a suicide bombing in Israel that killed 19 bystanders.

Israel withdrew from a strip of territory in south Lebanon in May 2000 after an 18-year occupation of the area in an effort to prevent cross-border attacks.

Most of the border has been relatively quiet since then, except the contested Chebaa Farms area to the east where shootouts between Israeli border guards and Hezbollah guerrillas occasionally flare into artillery and rocket exchanges, sometimes prompting Israeli air strikes.

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Associated Press reporter Laurie Copans in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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