(Wall Street Journal) Jonathan Spyer - Iran's Revolutionary Guards and their loyal proxies have laid the groundwork for a second Iranian front with Israel in the Golan Heights, in addition to the one in South Lebanon. In "The Iranian Conquest of Syria," published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, two retired senior Israeli military intelligence officers, Brig.-Gen. Shimon Shapira and Col. Jacques Neriah, explain how Iranian and Hizbullah fighters have crept methodically closer to Israel's border. Iranian elements and the local Syrians they have recruited are tightly woven into the border villages and the official Syrian security forces. Hizbullah has four permanent bases in southwest Syria, used to train locally recruited fighters and store short- and medium-range missiles. One base in Quneitra, 3 miles from the Israeli border, is situated within a position of the Syrian army's 90th Brigade and used mainly for intelligence gathering and eavesdropping. New Hizbullah positions have been established only 200 meters from the UN monitoring force. The writer is director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis.
2019-10-03 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive