Syria acknowledges Israeli air attack

From AP news

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Syrian President Bashar Assad told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Monday that Israeli warplanes attacked an "unused military building" in his country last month and said Damascus reserves the right to retaliate.

But Assad said his country was not about to attack Israel in response, suggesting he did not want to hurt chances at peace talks with the Jewish state.

Assad also made it clear that Syria would not attend a U.S.-sponsored international peace conference on the Middle East if it did not address Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war. Assad said Israel's air raid on northern Syria last month showed Israel's "visceral antipathy towards peace," according to excerpts posted on the BBC's Web site.

The comments were the first by the Syrian leader about a mysterious Sept. 6 Israeli air incursion over Syria that raised speculation that warplanes had hit weapons headed for Hezbollah or even a nascent nuclear installation, reports Damascus has repeatedly denied. Assad's comments were the first Syrian acknowledgement that an air raid took place and not just an aerial incursion.

"Retaliate doesn't mean missile for missile and bomb for bomb," Assad told the BBC in an interview in Damascus. "We have our means to retaliate, maybe politically, maybe in other ways. But we have the right to retaliate in different means."

"But if we wanted to retaliate militarily, this means we're going to work according to the Israeli agenda, something we don't look for. That doesn't mean we squander any opportunity for peace in the near future," he added in the interview, which was monitored in neighboring Lebanon.

Change in tone
But Assad said Syria was not about to attack Israel. "It's possible, but we don't say this is the option that we're going to adopt now. We say that we have many different means," he said.

Previously, Syrian officials had said only that the Israeli warplanes entered the country's airspace, came under fire from anti-aircraft defenses, and dropped munitions and fuel tanks over northeastern Syria to lighten their loads while they fled.

The BBC quoted Assad in the interview as saying the attack was on an "unused military building." The BBC did not air that part of the interview.