Steve Quayle News Alerts

June 15, 2002; Page A17
By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Iranian- and Syrian-backed group Hezbollah has built up forces along Lebanon's southern border with Israel, while humanitarian conditions inside Palestinian territories have deteriorated rapidly, diplomatic sources here said yesterday.

Sources said signs of a variety of new weaponry, including missiles capable of reaching major northern Israeli population centers and of shooting down planes, have been detected along the border in recent weeks, together with the increased presence and activity of Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. There was concern an attack into Israeli territory could be launched within the next several days.

Of equal concern, sources said, was the likelihood of massive Israeli retaliation, including movement into Lebanese and possibly Syrian territory. Although Israel has frequently alleged such escalation in the two years since its military forces withdrew from southern Lebanon, a new round of Israeli reports has now coincided with information collected by other observers in the region, they said.

State Department spokesman Greg Sullivan said a round of U.S. warnings had been delivered "in recent days" to the governments of Syria, Iran and Lebanon in response to intelligence reports provided by Israel, including some during Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's White House meeting last Monday with President Bush. But while "we have seen an escalation," he said, the administration was not prepared to characterize the threat as imminent.

The opening of a "second front" in the Middle East is viewed by most governments involved in the region as likely to spell the end of U.S.-led efforts to organize a political dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians.

At the moment, those efforts are awaiting a speech that President Bush is expected to deliver next week outlining the next steps in a process he has said should eventually lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state. The State Department has provided Bush with a detailed proposal, beginning with an international conference this summer to establish a phased agenda for simultaneous progress on both the security and political fronts.

Other administration officials, including some in Vice President Cheney's office and the Defense Department, have advocated stronger support for Israel's position that security problems, including continuing Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, must be resolved before a political process can begin.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in an interview yesterday that "no decision has been made yet by the president," who he said was spending the weekend "down at his ranch, reflecting" on advice from inside the administration and from months of consultations with Arab and Israeli leaders.

While "there may be [more] phone calls" between Bush and his interlocutors in the region, the president completed his face-to-face consultations in a meeting Thursday with Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud Faisal. After he met with Powell this afternoon, Faisal canceled a scheduled news conference and told reporters: "The talk that you want to hear is not me talking, but what the message and the statement of the president is going to be. And I, like you, am waiting for that."

Powell agreed that "the world is waiting" for what Bush will say.

"There are downsides to laying out specific timelines, because it then becomes a measure that people will use against you," Powell said in the interview. "But there is another point of view that says without timelines, then it's not clear where you're heading."

Although there was little overlap between the Israeli and Arab positions, Powell said, "they both understand that the current situation that they're in cannot continue. . . . Terror can't prevail."

Yesterday, officials of the "quartet" group, formed last spring of representatives from the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, met here to discuss the increasing urgency of the situation.

In his speech, sources said the non-U.S. members agreed, Bush will ideally schedule the international conference for before the end of summer and indicate that the conference itself will determine a Palestinian statehood calendar. Once that date is set, sources said, implementation of security agreements could precede settlement of outstanding political issues.

The group also discussed the growing humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip, where Israeli military forces have imposed curfews and blocked roads to aid what they say are anti-terrorist operations.

With Palestinians unable to travel to work or leave their homes in some cases, unemployment has risen above 70 percent in some areas, and more than 75 percent of Gaza Strip residents are living below the United Nations poverty line of $2.10 a day. A U.N.-directed food program that was serving some 200,000 Palestinians several months ago is now supplying at least 500,000 and is expected to increase to 800,000 within the next few weeks.

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