The regime and opposition have exchanged accusations about who was responsible for this week's bombings in Syria, writes Bassel Oudat in Damascus Two days after the first anniversary of the uprising against the Syrian regime that has so far killed nearly 10,000 people, two bombs targeting a police station and a military intelligence office exploded in the Syrian capital Damascus on Saturday, killing 27 people. The government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad blamed "terrorists" seeking to overthrow the regime for the bombings. They were the fourth in a series of attacks targeting security or other sectors since December. No group claimed responsibility for the bombings, with the regime and opposition exchanging accusations about the perpetrators. The regime claimed that the bombings had been carried out by the opposition and its supporters abroad, while the opposition claimed that the bombings had been carried out by the regime. According to the opposition, the bombings were intended to send a message that Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups were present in Syria, in the hope that the international community would support the regime as a shield against the terrorists. The Syrian government has previously accused "terrorist groups with Arab and foreign support" of targeting Syria's security, also claiming that Al-Qaeda has been involved in bombings in the country over recent months. It has also accused other Arab states, the US and Israel of sending money and weapons into the country, announcing that it has confiscated Israeli weapons in Homs, Damascus and Deraa. Syrian television has also aired footage of what it said was confiscated Israeli currency found in areas under the control of protesters. Since the early days of the uprising, the Syrian regime has claimed that the US, Europe, Israel, and the Arab states are all part of a plot to destroy the "Resistance Front" led by Syria. It has also described demands that Al-Assad step down from office as an "attack on Arab identity." For many years, the Syrian regime has used the phrase "land of resilience and resistance" to describe the country, focussing on Israel as the country's main enemy. The regime has long postponed internal reforms by claiming that the country's main priority is to confront Israel and Zionism and to continue its alliance with Iran and the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah. However, the Syrian opposition claims that in fact peace has largely prevailed between Israel and Syria over the past four decades and that the border between the two countries has been mostly quietly and stable. Late last month, Turkish sources said that claims by the Syrian regime that the opposition had been cooperating with Israel were false. The sources said that unmanned Israeli planes had been seen hovering over Syria, presumably spying on the protesters and photographing movements by the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) that is fighting against the Syrian regime. Israel seemed to be cooperating with the Syrian regime, the sources said, by providing Damascus with intelligence. Moreover, Russia had supplied the regime with the planes after they had been procured from Tel Aviv, they claimed The suppositions are similar to those contained in leaks from US sources that during a recent visit to Washington to prepare for the summit meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak had asked the US to ease the pressure on Al-Assad out of fears of the alternative. Amos Gilad, director of policy at the Israeli ministry of defence, warned that the ouster of Al-Assad from power in Syria "would result in a catastrophe that could obliterate Israel because of the rise of an Islamist empire in the Middle East led by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan and Syria." The statements were similar to ones made by Syrian businessman Ramy Makhlouf, Al-Assad's cousin, in an interview with the New York Times in which he warned of civil war in Syria and a "fight to the death." Makhlouf sent a message to Israel that its security and stability depended on Syria's security and stability, with observers saying that this message was tantamount to a confession that the Syrian regime accepted the situation on its borders with Israel and did not intend to reclaim the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. A report in Israel's Haaretz newspaper headlined "Al-Assad, King of Israel" said that statements by the Syrian regime against Israel were just rhetoric used by the regime as insurance against popular demands for freedom and reform. The report said that not a single shot had been fired on the border since 1973, despite the belligerent noises from Syria. Many Israelis were praying that Al-Assad would remain in power, the report said, seeing him as better for Israel than the alternatives. According to Khaldoun Al-Aswad, spokesman for the opposition 17 April Movement for Democratic Change, "various factors define US policies towards Syria, most prominently Israel's security. There is no united position by the Israel lobby in the US yet, but there is concern about the effects of the fall of the Al-Assad regime and what could follow." "Israel and the US know that Al-Assad's regime will eventually fall, but they have not found a better alternative that could maintain Israel's supremacy. Hence, they are adopting a position of cautious anticipation." Contrary to claims by the Syrian regime, contacts between Damascus and Tel Aviv have also not stopped over the past 18 years, when the peace process between the two countries began at the Madrid Conference. In 1994, the ambassadors of both countries met in Washington for talks, and in the same and following years meetings took place between the army chiefs of both countries. In 1995, Syria relaunched talks without preconditions with Israel, Walid Al-Muallim acting as the top Syrian negotiator. Three years later, talks restarted between Ehud Barak and Farouk Al-Sharaa, the Syrian foreign minister, and the two men met several times that year and the following year. Secret talks took place between the two sides in 2007, and one year later talks continued via Turkish mediation in Istanbul. The Syrians then announced that they were ready for direct talks with Israel, asking that the US sponsor the negotiations, though these talks were stopped after Israel's war on Gaza in 2009. Over the past two decades, many unofficial meetings between Syrian academics associated with the regime and their Israeli counterparts have taken place, and there have been reports that messages have been exchanged between Al-Assad and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert through Arab and European mediators. Meanwhile, the Syrian regime has also strengthened its ties with Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas, which observers view as moves to gain more leverage on the world stage rather than necessarily a desire to support the resistance in the region. Despite these alliances, Syria did not act during Israel's war against Hizbullah in 2006, nor in its attack on the Gaza Strip in 2009. In 2003, Israel bombed targets in northwest Damascus belonging to the Palestinian Popular Front, a resistance group, and in 2006 Israeli planes hovered over the presidential palace in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia. In September 2007, Israeli jets approaching from the Mediterranean bombed a site in northern Syria that Tel Aviv said could be the site of a nuclear reactor. Damascus did not retaliate, except by saying that it reserved the right to respond when it felt the time was right. However, tensions between the two sides have up to now been rapidly defused, since neither side is interested in war and instead wants to maintain the status quo. For its part, Syria's opposition has asserted that it intends to make regaining the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel during the 1967 War, a top priority following the fall of the Al-Assad regime, and it is perhaps this that has worried Israel and the US to the extent of their covert support for the Syrian regime.
