Israeli warplanes make "warning" flight over Syria

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli warplanes flew low over one of President Bashar al-Assad's palaces on Wednesday to warn Syria against supporting Palestinian militants who captured an Israeli soldier, the Israeli army said.

Syrian officials said two Israeli planes flew over Wadi Kandil, 20 km (13 miles) north of the port city of Latakia. Assad has a palace in the vicinity.

"The Air Defense Force then fired at them, dispersing them and making them leave the area," state television quoted a government official as saying.

The Israeli army said it appeared the aircraft had not been fired upon.

Israeli media reports said four planes carried out the overflights near Latakia early in the morning, causing several sonic booms.

They said Assad was at the palace at the time. Syrian television showed Assad meeting with visiting Lebanese and Jordanian officials in Damascus on Wednesday.

An Israeli spokeswoman said the planes flew over Assad's palace "because the Syrian leadership supports and harbours terrorist leaders, among them Hamas, the kidnappers of the soldier."

The armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement was among three factions which took part in a cross-border raid into Israel from Gaza in which the soldier was seized on Sunday.

Hamas said the operation was in response to Israeli attacks on Gaza that killed Palestinian civilians. Its armed wing has not said it is holding the soldier.

HAMAS LEADER ACCUSED

Israeli leaders have accused Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal of being responsible for the capture of the 19-year old soldier.

Exiled Hamas leaders say they were not involved in the operation, but are taking seriously Israeli threats to kill them.

"These operations could not be conducted by remote control; Israel is trying to link Syria and the Hamas leadership here with action by popular resistance in Gaza," the Syrian official said.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed for restraint.

Annan said he had been in touch with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as well as Assad, before the overflights, to try to calm the crisis sparked by the capture of the Israeli soldier.

Syrian political commentator Thabet Salem said in Damascus: "The Israelis are trying to make their problems into a regional one because the capture of the solider and settler is embarrassing for their military establishment."

Syria and Israel have been arch-foes for decades. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed the territory in a move not recognized internationally.

Tensions have risen during a nearly six-year Palestinian uprising with Israel repeatedly accusing Syria of harboring militants it says are linked to attacks on the Jewish state.

In 2003 Israel bombed a militant training base in Syria, wounding several people, after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 19 in an Israeli restaurant.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Damascus and Irwin Arieff at the United Nations)