In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Faruq al-Shara said: "If we are attacked again our people will not stand for it and we have to carry out the will of the people."

He added: "We have many cards that we have not played. Don't forget there are many Israeli settlements in the Golan. I am not exaggerating but I am describing things as they might happen."

On October 5, Israel bombed what it said was a training camp near Damascus used by the hardline Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, which had just claimed a devastating suicide bombing in the northern Israeli town of Haifa.

Damascus insisted the attack, Israel's first air raid deep into Syria in three decades, had targeted a civilian area.

On Thursday, Syria's military chief of staff General Hassan Turkmani was quoted as saying in the local press that "Syria did not retaliate to the Israeli raid, but is fully capable of deterring Israel and of putting an end to its bellicose adventures."

Since October 5, Turkmani has twice called on the military to stand "ready to respond" to any Israeli attack.

Shara also told the London-based Sunday Telegraph that Syria could not control its entire border and had failed to stop Palestinians, Iraqis and Syrians crossing to fight United States forces in Iraq.

"They are very determined and many of them dream of seeing an American tank," he said.

"We are doing everything we can. We have tightened our checkpoints and are turning people back. But the border is long and we cannot cover it all."

The foreign minister also insisted that the Syrian government had closed down the offices of Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.