Assad: Chances of war 'increasing'

Bashar al Assad, the Syrian president, has warned that "the possibility of war is increasing" in the region. "The specter of real peace in the region is disappearing, and the possibility of war is increasing," al Assad said in a statement marking Syrian Army Day on Sunday. Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah have traded increasingly hostile rhetoric in recent weeks, raising fears that the two are headed for another round of war. Al Assad also said that Syria would insist on the return of the Golan Heights as part of any peace deal with Israel, which occupied the heights in 1967. Syrian officials have long called their return an essential precondition for peace talks. "If anyone thinks that Syria might negotiate over its occupied land, then they are mistaken," al Assad said. "The liberation of the Golan is a deeply ingrained right. Peace requires restoring all the occupied soil."