Document: Syria unlikely to survive a war

JERUSALEM, April 8 (UPI) -- Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime would be unlikely to survive a war with Israel, a former senior Israeli military intelligence officer said.

Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, the former head of Israeli military intelligence, expressed the assessment in 2007 at meetings with U.S. intelligence officials, documents released by WikiLeaks indicate.

The documents quoting Yadlin were among numerous files on the Middle East conflict, Israeli security considerations and assessments of Arab neighbors published by the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth Friday.

The information stemmed from sensitive cables drawn up by the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and from meetings in Washington, Britain's Guardian reported.

One of the documents quotes outgoing Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin as criticizing Israeli Arab Knesset members to his American counterparts. Diskin accused the parliamentarians of "flirting with the enemy," Ynetnews.com said.

As far back as 2007, Meir Dagan, the former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, expressed concern about the instability of a number of Middle East regimes.

At a meeting in Washington in November 2009, Israeli intelligence officials told American intelligence officials Hezbollah was preparing for a war with Israel and would fire "400 to 600 rockets and missiles," each day, The Jerusalem Post said.