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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Lebanon
Index
The Israeli attack caught Assad by surprise. Syria had adhered
to the so-called "Red Line" agreements by deliberately refraining
from deploying antiaircraft missiles in the Biqa Valley and by not
impeding Israeli photoreconnaissance overflights. Assad responded
to the Israeli attack by stationing SA-6 surface-to-air missiles
(SAMs) in the vicinity of Zahlah. Other SAMs and surface-to-surface
missiles were deployed on the Syrian side of the border.
Begin vowed publicly that the IDF would launch an attack on the
missiles. In response, President Ronald Reagan dispatched to the
Middle East Special Ambassador Philip Habib, who averted the
imminent Israeli strike. Meanwhile, the Phalangists abandoned
Zahlah, and Syria reasserted its control over the Biqa Valley. The
net effect of the crisis was that Syrian air defense missiles were
deployed in Lebanon. Israel was forced to tolerate this situation
in the short run, but it still regarded the missile deployment as
an unacceptable shift in the balance of forces that could not be
endured indefinitely. Therefore, Israel had reasons of its own for
a future attack on the Syrians in Lebanon.
Data as of December 1987
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