Syria - Word War III.2
The Syrian regime, while indebted to Hezbollah and Tehran, had distanced itself from the escalating regional conflict between the “axis of resistance” and Israel. For decades, the Assad regime in Syria had been part of the regional, Tehran-backed “axis of resistance” opposed to Israel. The axis, which also included Iraq, Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Palestinian resistance factions, engaged in a larger regional confrontation with Israel since the start of its latest war in Gaza from October 2023. But while other axis members engaged in open conflict with Israel, Damascus remained on the sidelines, despite owing its survival to Tehran and Hezbollah — its main backers following the 2011 Syrian revolution.
The official narrative in Iran still emphasized that Syria is a "link in the chain of resistance," referring to the axis it leads and which is engaged in a conflict with Israel on more than one front. While Damascus has so far emphasized its “strategic relationship” with Tehran, the war that Israel started after the October 7 attack has not yet taken any real steps, as is the case with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the rest of the parties of the Iranian axis. Since the beginning of the Israeli war, which is now largely concentrated in Lebanon, the regime in Damascus has adhered to a policy of non-commentary, as if it were far from the burning geography. While it has tried to remain in the gray area for more than a year, this has not been enough to keep it out of the circle of Israeli strikes.
As Israel’s military continued its war on Gaza and Lebanon and its attacks on Yemen and the occupied West Bank, the attacks on Syria have flown rather under the radar. Ostensibly an ally of the Iranian regime and part of the larger “axis of resistance”, the Syrian regime led by Bashar al-Assad has been conspicuously quiet since the war in Gaza began in October 2023. As Israel expanded its war into Lebanon, and resistance groups from Iraq and Yemen got involved, Syria largely remained quiet.
Israel attacked Syrian territory many times over the since the West-Asia front errupted. More than 220 times since last October, according to NGO Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), which aggregates conflict data. The attacks came via air raids and artillery attacks. At least 104 of those attacks – which have killed at least 296 people – have been since January, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Israel has hit weapons depots, vehicles, and Iran-backed groups’ headquarters. Israel unilaterally claims it is hitting Iranian or Iran-linked targets in Syria, apparently taking that as a reasonable explanation for its actions.
The Israeli military has been hitting targets in Syria for decades, with a notable increase since 2011. In 2017, Israel further escalated its attacks on Syria, with the latest, most notable escalation coming after October 7, 2023.
Syria has been dealing with its own complex and multifaceted conflict, primarily involving the Syrian government, rebel groups, and international actors. The situation in Syria was somewhat separate from the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Syria had not been directly involved in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The United States had maintained a military presence in Syria, particularly in the northeastern part of the country, to support the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS). The U.S. presence had been a source of tension with the Syrian government and its allies, including Russia and Iran.
The Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, expressed opposition to the presence of American military bases in Syria. The Syrian government has consistently criticized what it views as foreign interference in its internal affairs and has called for the withdrawal of foreign forces from its territory.
Russia launched a "special military operation" in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin called its goal "the protection of people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years." He noted that the special operation was a forced measure, Russia was left with no chance to act differently, the security risks were such that it was impossible to respond by other means.
In April 2023 the top-secret US intelligence documents leak revealed that Ukraine's military intelligence hatched plans to carry out covert attacks on Russian forces in Syria with the assistance of local Kurds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky directed a halt to the plan in December 2022, but the leaked document, based on intelligence gathered as of Jan. 23, details how such a campaign could proceed if Ukraine revived it, the Washington Post reported after obtaining the "top-secret" document.
While making the plan in December, Ukraine's military intelligence officers favored attacking Russian positions using UAVs or limiting strikes to Wagner group forces, the secret document disclosed. Ukrainian forces were mulling over training operatives of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to attack Russian positions and carry out "unspecified 'direct action' activities along with UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] attacks," as per the document.
Meanwhile, the SDF in return for supporting Ukrainian operations, asked for training, air defense systems and a guarantee that its role would be kept secret, according to the document which also noted that the leadership of the SDF forbade attacks on Russian forces in Kurdish areas. This is one of the intelligence documents allegedly leaked to a Discord chatroom by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, who was later arrested.
In May 2023, Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR/HUR) chief Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov promised to “destroy Russian war criminals anywhere in the world they may be.” A Defence Intelligence source stated that since the beginning of 2024, insurgents supported by Ukrainian fighters had launched numerous attacks on Russian military facilities controlled by the so-called "grouping of forces of the Russian Armed Forces in the Syrian Arab Republic". In early June 2024, Kyiv Post published exclusive footage of Ukrainian special forces attacking enemy checkpoints, strongholds, foot patrols, and columns of military equipment in the Golan Heights in Syria.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad explained 04 March 2024 why Arab countries are not taking steps to stop the bloodshed and slaughter in Gaza. Russian journalist Vladimir Solovyov asked Assad: “I beg your pardon for the following question, but I am forced to ask it... One of the Arab commentators said: The Russians, who number only 150 million people, were not afraid of a collision with NATO in order to protect the lives of Russian citizens in Ukraine, but as for us Muslims, we counted.” Billions and we cannot protect our unfortunate brothers in Gaza. There are only useless statements from Turkey and a number of Arab countries, just statements. There was no response with an economic blockade, for example, and no steps were taken to respond. Only Ansar Allah is trying to influence, but why are countries silent? Why do Arab countries not take fair and necessary steps to stop the bloodshed and slaughter in Gaza?
Al-Assad replied: “These are Arab traditions in politics, at least for 40 years. During 40 years, we will only issue statements.” He added: "There are many reasons related to the Arab situation. The Arab situation is a bad situation. We cannot talk about it as if it were a coherent situation, because each Arab country works on its own."
Al-Assad pointed out that "the Western role in the decisions of the Arab countries is strong. It is a role that exists, and therefore Western pressure in favor of Israel is present in the Arab decisions. This is also a truth that all the Arab peoples know. I am not saying a secret in this case."
He continued: "We as people who stand with the Palestinians cannot hope much from the Arab situation, and if you ask this question to any Palestinian in Gaza now, they will give you the same answer: Why did the people of Gaza go to war ? Because they know that there is no Arab state, or even a non-Arab or Muslim state." Or a non-Muslim woman to defend them, so they had to defend themselves with their own hands.”
Since October 2023, Syria saw the largest escalation in fighting in four years. Syria experienced a wave of violence not seen since 2020, the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry warned in a report released today. Across multiple frontlines, parties to the conflict have attacked civilians and infrastructure in ways likely amounting to war crimes, while an unprecedented humanitarian crisis is plunging Syrians into ever deepening despair. The upsurge in fighting in Syria started on 5 October when consecutive explosions during a graduation ceremony at a military academy in the government-controlled city of Homs killed at least 63 people, including 37 civilians, and injured scores. Syrian Government and Russian forces responded with bombardments affecting at least 2,300 sites in opposition-controlled areas over just three weeks, killing and injuring hundreds of civilians. Their indiscriminate attacks, which may amount to war crimes, hit well-known and visible hospitals, schools, markets and camps for internally displaced persons, and since continued.
Since the start of the Gaza onslaught, tensions have increased between some of the six foreign armies active in Syria, notably Israel, Iran and the US - raising concerns of a wider conflict. Israel reportedly struck Iran-linked sites and forces in Syria dozens of times and attacked the Aleppo and Damascus airports. Pro-Iranian militias reportedly attacked US bases in north-east Syria hundreds of times, and the US responded with air strikes against pro-Iranian militias in eastern Syria.
Andrew J. Tabler, the Martin J. Gross Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and former director for Syria on the National Security Council, wrote 08 April 2024, "A rise in Syrian casualties before the Syrian war probably would have enticed al-Assad to enter the Gaza conflict in support of Iran and Hamas by now. But since 7 October, al-Assad—despite tough talk and continued references to his regime’s sovereignty over a country he has not controlled for a decade—has largely sat out the Gaza conflict, with only between 20 and 30 missile or rocket attacks from Syria on Israeli-controlled territory. Nearly all of these have reportedly “landed in open areas” and led to no Israeli casualties—which is read in Washington and elsewhere as a sort of code that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wants to stay out of the Gaza conflict. Israel has responded with mostly artillery fire and some air strikes on the launch sites.
"It is easy to understand why al-Assad remains on Gaza’s sidelines. The al-Assad regime—beset with shortages, hyperinflation, and without military control of most of the country’s agricultural and fossil fuels—is exhausted. Its military forces are spread thin and are increasingly coming under attack from the Islamic State (IS) in central Syria and Hay’at Tahrir as-Sham (HTS) from the northwest....
"This has reportedly led two of al-Assad’s allies—Russia and the United Arab Emirates—to urge al-Assad to stay out of the Gaza conflict. Both do not want to jeopardise the regime’s tenuous grip on the parts of the country it supposedly controls, as well as the regime’s chances of obtaining much-needed reconstruction funds that are currently blocked by the U.S. “Caesar” sanctions and Jordanian and Arab Gulf bafflement over the large flows of Captagon that continue out of Syrian territory into Jordan and beyond.... Syria’s continued de facto partition between the U.S., Turkey, Russia and Iran, and notably the latter’s militias that spent months hitting U.S. forces in Eastern Syria (leading to the deaths of three American soldiers and multiple U.S. retaliatory strikes), shows good reason for Moscow and Abu Dhabi’s advice."
The Syrian ruling Baath Party, which supported the special operation in Ukraine, is on the right side of history, the party's representative in Russia, Bassam Alshalabi said 17 June 2024. "The Arab Socialist Baath Party confirms that it stands on the right side of history by standing with the Russian Federation and its special military operation in Ukraine against neo-Nazism," Alshalabi said at the plenary session of the forum "The Role of the BRICS Association in Building a New Multipolar World Order." He also stressed that cooperation between Russia and Syria during the presidency of Vladimir Putin rose to a strategic level in all areas, especially in the fight against international terrorism, where "the blood of Russian and Syrian soldiers was mixed."
The target of the Khimik / Chemist group's attack was Russian military equipment at the Russian-occupied Kuveyres/ Kuweires / Kweres airbase, also known as Rasm al-Abboud, Quweires and a host of other names, located east of Aleppo. First, a Russian electronic warfare vehicle was destroyed, and then drones attacked Russian military targets at the airfield itself. It is noted that the strike was carried out the day after the meeting between Russian and Syrian dictators Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad on 24 July. Exclusive footage from Kyiv Post sources shows HUR special forces carrying out a complex strike on a Russian airbase in Syria, destroying military equipment a day after the Putin-Assad meeting. The Russians have controlled and used this airfield for military purposes since 2015. The facility has also been used to train and send foreign mercenaries to fight in Ukraine.
As the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah group escalated, by October 2024 analysts believed that the Syrian regime is "keen not to be dragged" into that war, despite its significant negative impact on one of its biggest allies in the region. On 05 Octobe 2024, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in the Syrian capital, Damascus, after a visit to Lebanon amid the escalation between his country and Israel on the one hand, and between the latter and the Lebanese Hezbollah on the other. Araghchi discussed "regional developments and bilateral relations" with Syrian regime officials.
Despite the strikes on some sites in Damascus and other areas in Syria, most of which were attributed to Israel, Bashar al-Assad's regime did not move a finger and did not take any "retaliatory measures." In this regard, Seth Frantzman, an associate fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, explained that the Syrian regime’s reluctance to join Iran’s threats against Israel “likely stems from its feeling that it has nothing to gain from escalation, and much to lose.” He pointed out that with the bloody conflict in Syria continuing without a solution for more than 13 years, the Damascus regime "is still trying to find a way to return its forces to the areas controlled by Turkey in the north of the country, in addition to its desire for the American forces to leave, and for Washington to stop its support for the Syrian Democratic Forces."
"Therefore, the Syrian regime has enough problems," he continued. When the Israeli campaign in southern Lebanon began, the Syrian regime was quick to launch plans to respond to the Lebanese, talking about the existence of “shelters” that could accommodate thousands of them. While this approach may be a natural course of action for a neighboring country, the picture is different when looking at the position that Damascus has shown towards Syrian refugees there, in the past and now.
Experts say the Golan Heights is one area that could be a target for Iranian-backed groups that have a presence in Syria. In late July 2024, a rocket attack hit a village in the Israeli-held part of the Golan Heights, killing at least 12 people, most of them children. Israel and the United States blamed Hezbollah for the attack, while the Lebanese group denied responsibility. Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militias may want to threaten Israel from the Syrian part of the Golan, but the Assad government “is likely to pretend it has a reasonable ability to prevent such an escalation,” Frantzman said. He continued: "Assad knows that Israel will hold him responsible for any support for the attacks," considering that "for decades, Damascus has shown that it prefers the status quo with Israel."
"It (Damascus) is afraid to take risks," Frantzman added. "Although it pretends to be part of the 'resistance' against Israel, it has accepted that it cannot defeat Israel since the 1970s."
For his part, Brigadier General Ahmed Rahhal, a former Syrian officer who defected in 2012, said that the Assad regime's policy of "non-interference" has remained in place since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023. He added: "Assad knows that any activation of the Golan front could mean the end of his regime... but he does not have the ability to control Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militias, so he chose to stay away."
In a related context, Israeli officials said that Iran "continues to use Syria to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah." Experts explained that this also represents a danger to the Syrian regime at this stage of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. “Since Hezbollah has withdrawn most of its fighters from Syria to fight in Lebanon, it still needs someone to transport Iranian weapons, and that person is Maher al-Assad (brother of the regime president), who heads the Fourth Division of the Syrian army,” Rahhal said.
Several Arab media outlets reported that among the Israeli strikes in late Sep[tember 2024 on Syria was a raid that hit Maher al-Assad's residence near Damascus. "The Israeli message to Assad was clear: 'Do not deliver weapons to Hezbollah.' So it seems that in light of such Israeli threats, the Assad regime was forced to distance itself from Iran in the context of this conflict," Rahhal concluded.
More than a year after Operation “al-Aqsa Flood” the position of the Syrian regime remained difficult for soem analysts to understand and interpret, except for some indications here and there, as it remains the only party of the “Axis of Resistance” outside the framework of resistance in word and deed. The current war waged by the occupying state is unlike any previous war waged on the Gaza Strip (nor Lebanon either), and its present is unlike its beginnings. Over the past year, it has witnessed a major change in concepts, methods, goals, and scope.
The concepts of war traditionally accepted by the occupying state have changed. The current war is not quick or fleeting, nor is it on enemy territory. It was not the one who initiated it, and it has proven that it is more capable of bearing its human losses (dead, wounded, and prisoners), military, economic, and other losses than the stereotypical image of it.
The goals of the war changed over the previous months from restoring deterrence, liberating prisoners, and destroying Hamas’s capabilities so that it would not repeat the attack like the one on October 7, to trying to occupy the Strip and empty it of its residents, and imposing a new administrative and security system in it, all the way to more distant and complex goals such as eliminating the resistance movements: Hamas and Jihad in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and imposing a new security reality in southern Lebanon and “redrawing the maps of the Middle East.”
Hezbollah launched its support front, Tehran issued supportive positions, and the Ansar Allah in Yemen engaged in economic siege operations against the Israeli ports through their operations in the Red Sea, and Iraqi factions affiliated with Iran adopted several attacks, while the Syrian regime remained almost silent. Even at the level of official statements, stances and declarations, of which there was hardly anything related to the war on Gaza (and then Lebanon), there are more than a handful of them, and in cold language and formulations, as if they were commenting on an event in Latin America, or as if Syria were a Scandinavian country and not a major pillar of the “axis.”
It was therefore not surprising that the Syrian leadership was absent from the speeches of the resistance movements; Hamas mentioned it at the beginning of the war and then ignored it, and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah mentioned it only once or twice in his speeches in a general context. Moreover, Syrian media professionals pointed out that Syrian state television did not broadcast the latter’s speeches as usual.
The "axis" places this within the framework of distributing tasks according to capabilities or "supporting the resistance militarily, materially and morally" without entering the battle, as Nasrallah said. While many read it within the framework of a new position of the regime in this war, which is in harmony with its desire to float and return to the official Arab system, in light of reports that spoke of "Israeli" threats, and others about understandings it concluded with the American administration through Arab mediators to guarantee its future in exchange for its neutrality, and a third about disagreements with Iran against the backdrop of the repeated assassinations of its leaders on its territory.
There are those who believe that Syria was not able to provide any tangible practical support to the resistance, given its reality and capabilities, as well as the challenges it faces. Silence or neutrality was an attempt to avoid the worst, which is targeting and overthrow. Damascus intended to distance itself from the ongoing war and remain at a clear distance from it, out of a desire for gain or fear of paying a price, but it may have miscalculated. Some predicted that the war was going to expand rather than stop, as Netanyahu, along with the military and security establishment and his partners in the government, will not stop before reaching a point where they can present an image of victory to the “Israeli” interior, a point that is still very far away in southern Lebanon, at the very least.
The head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Division, Amos Yadlin, called for considering striking the Assad regime, “which represented the main bridge for military supplies and the growth of Hezbollah,” and giving it the choice between continuing on the same path, endangering its survival, or closing its borders.
The attempt to avoid involvement in the current war seemed to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. an attempt that pushes towards the fate that is to be avoided, and therefore, according to logical data, it did not seem that the Assad regime can keep itself out of the framework of being affected by the current war and its expected future developments. Even if he thought that the understanding with Washington or the Russian military presence might protect him, he is mistaken. The Russian presence has not yet prevented the repeated Israeli violations of Syrian airspace and sites.
Even Turkish President Erdogan had begun to make daily statements about Netanyahu’s ambitions in the region, and that Turkey and Syria were next after Palestine and Lebanon, warning against harming his country’s national security. It is unreasonable that there is someone in Damascus who ignores that war sometimes chooses you even if you do not choose it, or that he will protect his country from the flood with a mountain of understandings or a protection ship.
In November 2024 Damascus witnessed several strikes attributed to Israel that targeted groups loyal to Iran. The two visits by Iranian officials to the Syrian capital, Damascus, and the third visit by the Syrian regime’s Foreign Minister, Bassam Sabbagh, to Tehran, carry within them an operation of “delivering and receiving messages,” based on what was revealed by the media, and based on the timing as well. While the precise details of the content of these “messages” are absent, experts and observers who spoke to Alhurra believe that the recent Iranian moves regarding Syria are striking, and it is clear that they are linked to “some fear in both directions,” especially since the Syrian regime and its president, Bashar al-Assad, “have come under the spotlight as a winning card between two axes.”
Tehran had been linked to Damascus for years by a "strategic relationship," which was confirmed by the Syrian regime's Foreign Minister, Bassam Sabbagh, from the capital, Tehran, on Tuesday, saying in a press conference that he "held positive discussions and a fruitful exchange of views, due to strengthening cooperation in all fields." Syrian regime President Bashar al-Assad met on 17 November 2024 with Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh, a few days after meeting with Ali Larijani, advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Sabbagh's visit to Tehran came just two days after Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh arrived in Damascus, and following a "message" delivered by Iranian Supreme Leader's advisor Ali Larijani to the Syrian regime a day earlier, according to his statements reported by Iranian media. Visits between the two sides are considered normal, but they have never happened in the way they did last week and within 48 hours, when Larijani arrived first and met with Assad, and after returning to Tehran, the Iranian defense minister landed again in the Syrian capital and met with Syrian officials.
When Larijani was in Damascus, Israel bombed two buildings in the Syrian capital, killing leaders of the Islamic Jihad movement, which is classified as a terrorist organization. This came at the same time as several threats issued by the Israeli army, focusing on the regime, based on the weapons supply routes passing through its areas of influence towards Hezbollah in Lebanon.
It was not yet known what the limits of the Israeli campaign in Lebanon will be, or whether it will take a more ferocious turn in Syria, in terms of the strikes that have begun to target the most vital areas in central Damascus, such as the Mezzeh neighborhood. The same applied to the position that the Syrian regime will take based on the threats targeting it, and whether it will continue to adhere to its “strategic” relationship with Tehran, especially on the security and military side, or whether it may take other paths. Western and Arab reports have always highlighted these paths, analyzing and pointing to the possibility of Assad distancing himself from the Iranian axis.
Sabbagh's visit to Tehran was his first since assuming the position of Syrian Foreign Minister, and according to Ayman Al-Dasouki, a Syrian researcher at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies, it falls "in the context of Assad's response to Ali Khamenei's message." Larijani carried it. The visit also aimed to frame (Tehran and Damascus) the messages “in official formats in the form of agreements or treaties that allow both of them to manage concerns and interests at a critical moment regionally and internationally.”
Khaled Khalil, a Syrian researcher and academic specializing in Israeli affairs, says that the mutual visits between Damascus and Tehran within a week are part of an “Iranian attempt to return Assad to the axis that protected his regime.” Khalil also believes, in his interview with Alhurra, that Iran wants to repay the services it provided to the Syrian regime “after it broke the stick of obedience by approaching the Arab axis, and in light of American attempts to create new equations in the region.”
There had been successive indications of the Syrian regime’s rapprochement with Arab and Gulf countries, in contrast to the decline in its relations with Iran and its allies in the region, especially Hezbollah and Hamas. In addition, according to the Syrian academic, the Iranian “messages” published by the media “contain warnings veiled in threats.” However, he explains that the warnings "do not amount to threatening the regime itself and removing it, but rather are tainted by a kind of bargaining that Iran is trying to impose on Assad, as it rules him with a lot of debt."
The relationship between Iran and the Syrian regime is not only related to the military and political aspects, and over the past years its borders have reached the point of penetrating economic sectors as well. On the military side in particular, many Revolutionary Guard militias are still deployed throughout Syria. At the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza, Assad was the focus of attention, and this was imposed by the "neutral" position he took.
While he did not depart from that state, it is now almost different in its general form, to the point of focusing on the possibility of his distancing himself from Iran and its axis, in exchange for averting the danger of greater escalation, and with the aim of obtaining gains that may reach the point of breaking international isolation. The Syrian academic, Khalil, explains that the focus of “attention” on Assad in the region now is not related to his military capabilities, as he is absolutely helpless, but rather it is related to the “geopolitical dimension.”
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