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Initials



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Background: Fighting for mount Hermon, important to both israelis and syrians for military and symbolic reasons, is now in its 13th day. As the syrians and israelis launched air attacks on each other's forces, a beirut newspaper published what it described as the basic five points of a syrian plan for a troop disengagement agreement with Israel. Quoting informed diplomatic sources. As Safir said Brigadier Hikmat al Shihabi, chief of syrian military intelligence carried the plan with him when he visited Washington earlier this month and discussed it with US secretary of state Kissiger. The plan provided a timetable for complete israeli withdrawal form Syrian territory occupied during the 1967 and 1973 ME wars. It also provides for a phased israeli withdrawal to a site west of Kuneitra including three hills overlooking the provincial capital.

In the syrian capital Damascus, the tension is sensible by the interest given by the population to the two newspapers published in the city. They listen every news bulletin and give all their attention to the military communiques regularly dispatched. In the evening families gather around the TV set to learn the last developments of the battle raging some 40 km away on the Golan and on mont Hermon.