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Source: https://jstribune.com/lerman-assessing-israels-ongoing-campaign-against-iran-in-syria/
Assessing Israel's Ongoing Campaign Against Iran in Syria
(Jerusalem Strategic Tribune) Col. (ret.) Dr. Eran Lerman - Since 2013 - and more intensely since 2017 - Israel has been conducting an active military and intelligence campaign against Iran's presence in Syria. The Israeli defense establishment assesses that its pressure on Iran's presence in Syria is effective. Israel's campaign includes airstrikes in Syrian territory and occasionally in northern Iraq, and low-intensity naval warfare - including operations by Israeli special forces against Iranian ships carrying oil or weapons to Lebanon and Syria. The purposes of the Syrian campaign are to destroy Iran's efforts to build up a significant military presence in Syria and disrupt the line of supply to Hizbullah in Lebanon. The Israeli air force could act almost without losses against targets in Syrian territory, as long as it secures deconfliction arrangements with foreign air forces operating there, including Russia, beginning in September 2015. When Iran tried to retaliate in May 2018 by firing 34 rockets into the Israeli Golan Heights, the Israeli air force responded with a massive attack on nearly 100 Iranian targets all over Syria. The IRGC continues to seek alternative methods of retaliation against Israel. Iranian agents or people in their pay plotted attacks on Israeli citizens in Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Turkey and Greece. All were averted by the local authorities, apparently with the help of Israeli intelligence tip-offs. The writer, a former senior intelligence officer, served as Israel's deputy national security adviser.