Crescent of Iranian forces ‘controls corridor from the Med to Red Sea’

THE southern Lebanon villages of Bint Jbeil, close to Israel’s border, seem peaceful enough in the haze of sunset. But according to the Israeli battalion commander at a garrison post overlooking this sector, Hezbollah militia occupy 240 of them.

“The trouble is that we have no strategic depth here. They are right on top of us. We get a continuous flow of fake tourists just on the other side of the fence there, with cameras and binoculars,” says the major, who hails from Amsterdam.

He says that one in four of the main buildings in the nearest villages, including mosques and schools, are used as barracks, or to store weapons including medium range-rockets and missiles.

The threat from the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia to Israel is now seen as more menacing than that from Islamic State or al Qaeda and its affiliates — particularly as IS continues to lose ground around Raqqa and Mosul.

“By concentrating on IS, we have all neglected to understand the threat from Iran and its associates,” Lt-Gen Gadi Eizenkot, head of Israel’s forces, warned at the Herzliya security conference this week. Hezbollah has acquired rockets and missiles from Iran and Syria “and even Russian weapons from the Syrian government, acquired right under the Russians’ noses”. Hezbollah is now estimated to have an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles, many capable of hitting every main town in Israel. Its experience in Syria has seen it transform from a home-grown militia to a professional army.

It has come at a steep price, according to Lt-Gen Eizenkot. At least 1,800 of its fighters have been killed in Syria and 8,000 have been injured. About a third of all its forces, estimated at around 40,000, have been fighting in Syria. Wages and pensions have been paid by Iran, which has spent $800 million.

“The Iranians have made no attempt to disguise that they are here,” said another Israeli major, commanding the forward part of the division guarding the Golan Heights, for which Israel and Syria fought in 1967 and 1973. “I saw an Iranian just watching us through his binoculars from New Quneitra, just down in the valley.”

The biggest threat, according to the director general of Israel’s new Intelligence Ministry, Chagai Tzuriel, is the chain of Shia militias propping up the Assad regime in Syria. This army of Afghan, Pakistani, Iraqi and Iranian fighters now holds key points on the old border between Iraq and Syria. This past week they have been targeted by US air strikes. Their importance cannot be exaggerated, says Tzuriel.

“They are the last link in the grand design of the crescent of Iranian forces now controlling a corridor from the Mediterranean, right down to Iran itself and the Gulf, to Yemen and across the Red Sea. It is an astonishing strategic achievement, a real game changer. What happens in Syria right now could decide the fate of the region and world.”