Raids on Syria

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33111, 29 December 1972, Page 9

Raids on Syria

<V Z P A -Reuter—Copyright BEIRUT, Dec. 28. Syrian troops are reported to be on high alert today after Israeli air strikes against Syrian army and Palestinian commando positions in the south of the country

According to an announcement by the Syrian military command, the Israeli planes attacked two Syrian villages. Dael and Saida, near the town !of Deraa. which is close to !the Syrian-Jordanian border i Three civilians were killed and two soldiers wounded No commando losses or casualties were reported. Israel said yesterday's raidwere made by an undisclosed number of planes on a Palestinian guerrilla base just east of the line and three Syrian army positions—including an artillery battery — at the southern end. All planes returned safely. The Israeli raids—the first for just over a month—came after the announcement in Beirut of a commando operation inside the Israeli-occu-pied Golan Heights. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said its men had caused several casualties in an Israeli armv engineering unit by detonating remote controlled bombs and rockets. SPY RING Meanwhile, Israelis received another jolt with the news that two more Jewish youths had been arrested in the break-up of a Syriansponsored spy and satotage network uncovered in Tel Aviv earlier this month.

The arrests bring to six the number of Jews alleged to have been involved in the net, which Israeli security says was controlled from Damascus and was operated from a Haifa bookshop by a Left-wing Arab.