TEL AVIV, Israel, April 28 (UPI) -- Israel's military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, says Syria plans to use growing oil revenues to increase its military expenditures.
Some of Syria's arms purchases are expected to go toward refitting the country's air force, which stopped buying new planes in the 1980s, he said in a lecture to the Israeli intelligence community in Glilot, north of Tel Aviv.
Yadlin also said the Syrians were continuing to focus their arms production on rockets and longer-range SCUDS, Ha'aretz reported.
Some of the weapons are apparently being transferred to the fundamentalist Hezbollah, including the array Hezbollah has deployed along the border between Lebanon and Israel.
There seems to be a hardening of Syrian's position after a long period during which Damascus was on the defensive, following the French-American initiative to push its forces out of Lebanon, Ha'aretz reported.
Syria reportedly has pinpointed a weakness in the United States due to its involvement in Iraq and is urging Hezbollah not to give in to demands it disarm.
