Summary
Conflicting reports from Israel and Syria Wednesday over an apparent attempt to stage a roadside bomb ambush against Israeli troops in the Golan Heights underlines that this long-stagnant front line has the potential to become a new limited theater of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
According to news reports in Israel, Israeli army scouts at around 6 a.m. spotted two Hezbollah men who had crossed the Armistice Demarcation Line which marks the eastern limit of Israeli-occupied territory in the Golan, and were approaching the security fence.
However, there was one previous roadside bomb attack in December when an Israeli patrol was struck by an explosive device planted on the Syrian side of the security fence in the northern Golan near Mount Hermon.
A "qualitative" Hezbollah attack in the Shebaa Farms (such as a roadside bomb ambush on one of the supply routes to an Israeli outpost) cannot be ruled out as a retaliation for the airstrike.
It does come five days after two Grad rockets landed near an Israeli outpost on the Golan Heights, an unclaimed attack that was the first of its kind since the Syria war began and therefore sparked speculation that Hezbollah was responsible.
...