'Iran Will Respond To Israel's Airstrikes In Syria'

Ex-IDF intel chief: Iran will respond to overnight airstrikes in Syria

TZVI JOFFRE 

A former IDF intelligence chief warned that Israel should be prepared for a variety of different responses by Iran or its proxies after two waves of alleged Israeli airstrikes targeted sites belonging to the Syrian Army and Iranian and pro-Iranian forces throughout Syria on Tuesday night.

“The Iranians and their proxies will search for ways to respond to and deter Israel,” tweeted Amos Yadlin, former IDF Intelligence chief and executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies, on Wednesday, adding that Israel must prepare for a full spectrum of possible responses by the “Shi’ite axis in which Nasrallah has entered into [former IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem] Soleimani’s shoes as a strategist and central operator.”

The former IDF intelligence chief pointed to past attempts to fire rockets into Israel and recent cyberattacks targeting Israeli businesses and infrastructure.

Referring to the economic crisis in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, Yadlin stated that these difficulties could moderate possible responses, but could also accelerate and push to divert attention to external conflict.

Yadlin added that the airstrikes on Tuesday night show that reports that the Iranians were leaving Syria were “wishful thinking,” explaining that Iran was continuing to widen the area where it was establishing itself in Syria. 

Yadlin stressed that As-Suwayda, the location of some of the strikes, is located in an area in which Russia had promised that Iran and Hezbollah would not have access to.

Syrian air defenses responded to an alleged Israeli airstrike near Hama in western-central Syria late on Tuesday night, just hours after alleged Israeli airstrikes targeted sites in southern and eastern Syria, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA.

The second wave of strikes targeted multiple sites near Hama including warehouses used by Iranian militias to store weapons and ammunition, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Casualties were reported due to the strike. According to the Step News Agency, the strikes destroyed an Iranian arms shipment that had arrived from the Iranian Imam Ali base in the Deir Ezzor region of eastern Syria.