Iran-Israel conflict explodes out of the shadows
LARGEST ISRAELI AIR RAID INSIDE SYRIA IN 30 YEARS. ‘WHOEVER HURTS US, WE WILL STRIKE AT HIM SEVENFOLD,’ VOWS NETANYAHU
TEL AVIV• In recent months, friction between Iran and Israel has escalated as the war in Syria winds down and parties to the conflict consolidate gains. Iran is institutionalizing its military presence there, to the distress of Israel, which has vowed to block the establishment of a permanent Iranian foothold.
That shadow war exploded into the open early Thursday morning.
Israel conducted its biggest raid inside Syria in at least 30 years, saying Iranian forces there fired a barrage of missiles at the Israeli-held section of the Golan Heights.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran had “crossed a red line” in launching the attack and warned against any escalation of the conflict.
“Whoever hurts us, we will strike at him sevenfold,” Netanyahu said after a meeting of his security cabinet concluded at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. “Whoever prepares to hurt us, we will act to strike him first.”
“We will not let Iran turn Syria into a forward base against Israel,” said Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman. “If we get rain, they’ll get a flood. I hope that we ended this chapter and that everyone understood.”
A showdown had seemed inevitable between the two Middle East powers. Israel has been warning against Iran’s growing influence in Syria, and Iran had vowed to retaliate for deadly suspected Israeli airstrikes last month on Iranian positions there. Tensions have been rising in the region since President Donald Trump decided two days ago to quit the Iranian nuclear agreement and impose broad sanctions.
However, Tehran is wary of a wider military conflagration with Israel that could jeopardize its military achievements in Syria at a time when it is trying to salvage the international nuclear deal and may be limited in its ability to strike back.
Michael Horowitz, a senior analyst at Le Beck International, a Middle East-based geopolitical and security consultancy, said Israel’s strategy was two-fold. In part, Israel wanted to delay Iranian entrenchment in Syria as much as possible and make sure it came at the highest cost possible. At the same time, Israel was trying to back up its diplomatic efforts aimed at getting Russia and the United States to rein in Iranian expansionism.
The recent clashes reveal the difficulty both sides face in dealing with an unprecedented situation, said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East studies at Sciences Po, Paris School of International Affairs.
The clashes will eventually likely lead not to further escalation, but to the “consolidation of new ‘red lines’ tacitly endorsed by Israel and Iran,” he said in an analysis written for the Carnegie Middle East Center.
Liberman said his country struck most of Iran’s military facilities in Syria. He called on Sunni Arab Gulf states, which have drawn closer to Israel in recent years over a shared enmity toward Iran, to “come out of the closet” and establish with Israel an “axis of moderate states” in the Middle East.
In a rare public gesture by an Arab government, Bahrain expressed its support for the Israeli air raids.
“It is the right of any country in the region, among them Israel, to defend itself and destroy the sources of danger,” Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid Al Khalifa said in a Twitter post.
Colonel Jonathan Conricus said Thursday that Iran had been trying to orchestrate an attack for a month, but Israel thwarted its attempts.
Israel said it attacked overnight after Iran’s Quds Force, an elite unit of the Revolutionary Guards that’s backing Syrian President Bashar Assad, targeted Israeli army positions with 20 rockets. None of the rockets reached Israeli-held territory, with most falling short and several intercepted, it said.
Israel said it attacked Iranian intelligence facilities and logistics compounds, a military base and other posts, as well as munition storage warehouses of the Quds forces at Damascus international airport. It also attacked Syrian anti-aircraft batteries after they entered the fray.
Interfax reported that Syria, which uses Russianmade aerial defences, intercepted about half of the Israeli missiles. Israel used 28 warplanes and fired about 60 missiles in its latest airstrike in Syria, it reported, citing the Russian Defense Ministry. In addition, Israel launched more than 10 surface-to-surface tactical missiles on Syria, it said.