Ten anti-personnel mines were discovered by an IDF patrol along the border with Syria in the Golan Heights on Saturday. The mines were not concealed or covered and IDF experts determined that they had been thrown over the border fence between Syria and Israel around midday Saturday. It is not clear who threw the mines into Israel or why. Syrian soldiers, terrorists and shepherds have been mentioned as the possible culprits. An IDF engineering unit was dispatched to neutralize the mines. Israel planned to file an official complaint with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which is deployed in Syria to oversee the 33-year-old ceasefire with Israel. An unnamed IDF officer said Sunday that responsibility for the event rests with the Syrian government, even if it was a "local initiative" that did not get an official green light from Damascus. The Syrian military has moved military infrastructure, including fuel depots, closer to the border with Israel Military sources revealed that the mines were actually Israeli mines that the IDF had planted east of the security fence, but still within Israeli territory. Ten of these mines were taken out of the ground and lobbed over the fence. Six were found on the dirt road used by IDF patrols, north of Golan Brook in the southern part of the Golan Heights. One possibility being looked into is that the Resistance Committees for Freeing the Golan Heights were involved in the incident. This Syrian guerrilla organization announced its inception in the summer of 2006, and said it would use Syrian terrorists to wage a guerrilla war in the Golan. The group also claimed that it was holding Israeli soldier Guy Hever, who went missing in the Golan on August 17, 1997. The Jerusalem Post reported on Friday that Syria has spent the past few months moving infrastructures to its southern border - and constructing additional infrastructures there as well - for the purpose of launching a war against Israel. According to defense officials, the Syrian military has moved military infrastructure, including fuel depots, closer to the border with Israel, and the Syrians have built structures that could serve as weapons storage facilities and military bases. The Syrian army is restricted in the number of troops it is allowed to deploy along the border.
