Syria to back Lebanon in case of Israeli attack

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Sunday that Damascus would stand by Beirut, should Israel launch another war on Lebanon.

“Syria will stand alongside the government and people of Lebanon against any possible Israeli aggression launched on Lebanon,” Assad said Sunday in a meeting with visiting Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Damascus, AFP reported.

Assad and Berri discussed “repeated Israeli threats on countries in the region and Israeli extremism which can kill chances for peace and bring war to the region,” official Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

Officials in Tel Aviv recently reiterated threats of war against both countries, which still have parts of their territories occupied by Israel.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has recently said that Syria should clinch a peace deal with Israel or find itself in a “full-fledged war” with Tel Aviv. A few days later hawkish Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened Assad with another war in which “his family will lose power” on top of a military defeat for the country.

Late last month, an Israeli minister predicted a third attack on Lebanon, which has already suffered deadly Israeli raids in 2000 and 2006.

The head of Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) Walid Jumblatt recently said they would stand by Syria in the face of what he called ‘a frenzied Israeli attitude.’

The Leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has also expressed his support for Syria’s anti-Israeli stance.