The night attack is intended to disrupt a new Iranian deployment in Syria

Despite the assassination of Qassem Suleimani, the corona plague and US sanctions, Iran has not stopped its efforts to establish itself in Syria and establish another front against Israel. It has only done so in a low profile and changed its deployment in Syria and Iraq to reduce the ability of Israel’s air force to harm the military infrastructure it is building in Syria.

Estimates in the West that Kaani had difficulty getting into Suleimani’s big shoes were falsified. After a few months, Kaani, who was Suleimani’s deputy and close friend, continued Iran’s expansion operation in the Middle East through emissaries. He only did so with a low media profile and more caution than his predecessor in office.

Kaani also had to consider quite a few constraints. One of them was the request of the Iraqi government not to carry out actions on its soil that would widen the rift between it and the Donald Trump administration and would not cause the Israeli Air Force to attack its soil.

Kaani concluded that he needed to make a fundamental change in the deployment of loyal forces to Iran in Syria to increase their survival, and in a way that would establish their presence there and establish the extremist axis that begins in Tehran, passes through Syrian territory and ends in Lebanon. In this context, Kaani reduced the presence of Iranian Revolutionary Guards personnel inside Syria as well as the presence of Shiite militia members from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan near the border with Israel.

Instead of tens of thousands of fighters from the Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah and foreign Shiite militias that Suleimani planned to hold in Syria, Kaani reduced their numbers to 2,000 to 2,500 Iranians and foreign militiamen and drove them to northern Syria to the front of Aleppo and Idlib. Kaani probably knows that the regime in Iran is very sensitive to Iranian and foreign fighters returning home in closets from Syria and other adventures throughout the Middle East.

These coffins cause demonstrations and protests against the regime and so already in the days of Suleimani the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards began to reduce the presence of its people in Syria. Kaani continued this trend and sent his men to fight far from the border with Israel where they are vulnerable, to fight in northern and eastern Syria against the rebels and against ISIS. There they are really needed.

However, Kaani did not completely relinquish an Iranian presence near the border with Israel. To this end, he cultivates the arm of Hezbollah operating in the Golan Heights and southern Syria and establishes new militias whose fighters are young Syrians who are willing to fight for Iran to support their families or Shiites and religious supporters of Iran. The Syrian militias he set up placed the explosives near the perimeter fence in the Golan Heights last year.

But the main tier of the new Iranian deployment was the establishment in eastern Syria, in a transit zone between the two countries, where the Euphrates River crosses the border from Syria to Iraq. The border crossing in this area, on the Iraqi side, is near the town of al-Qaim and on the Syrian side near the town of al-Bukhmal.

Suleimani at the time set up a huge logistical and military camp near al-Bukhamel called “Imam Ali” which was intended to serve as an important transit station on the land corridor from Tehran to Damascus and the Lebanon Valley. This camp is also intended to serve as a logistical backbone for the fronts that Iran has opened against Israel in Syria and Lebanon. The reason for this was a distance of almost 600 kilometers northeast of the border with Israel that makes it difficult for the Air Force to hit it because of the flight range in the depths of the territory of Syria or Iraq, where there are many air defense systems of the Syrian army.

Suleimani’s successor turned the Imam Ali camp and the entire province in which the cities of al-Bukhamel and Deir a-Zor are located into the center of Iranian establishment in southern Syria. In this area, Kaani recently concentrated tens of thousands of foreign Shiite fighters, especially from the Afghan “Fatmion” brigade, which operates under the auspices of the Revolutionary Guards. In addition, Kaani set up a new Iraqi militia called the Luisa al-Muntar, which was also stationed in the al-Bukhamel area of ​​Deir a-Zour.

Members of these militias, from Afghanistan and Iraq, entered Syria last March after undergoing combat training in Iraq. They have set up additional bases in the area and, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, they often take over houses in areas built in the cities of Deir Azor and al-Bukhamal on the assumption that the Israeli Air Force will refrain from bombing these houses.

Iranian investigator Dr. Raz Zimet revealed that Iran-sponsored Shiite militias turned homes in the heart of these cities into military camps without paying compensation to apartment owners, and that the Syrian army was removed from where the Iranians and their emissaries were based. Confront with ISIS members but concentrate on maintaining their logistical warehouses and their camps, which are intended to serve as a reserve force in a logistical rear for the great battle with Israel, if and when it opens.

At the same time, according to Dr. Zimt, the Iranians renewed their cargo flights to Syria and their efforts to produce accurate rockets in the Syrian government’s industrial and military research plants. All this with the consent of Syria, which also signed a defense agreement with Iran last summer.

These deployment changes have lit a flashing yellow light in the IDF’s intelligence wing, assuming that if Kaani succeeds in carrying out his plan without interruption, it is likely to make it difficult for the IDF to cope on the Syrian front, and possibly the Lebanese front in the next war, if it occurs. It is not inconceivable that the IDF that the IDF operates should also disrupt this deployment, even though the Iranians have moved east and north of the border in the Golan Heights. The logistical home front in the area of ​​Deir a-Zor and al-Bukhamel is no less dangerous to Israel, and perhaps even more so than the lineup of Hezbollah and the Syrian militias near the Israeli border.

Therefore, it can be estimated that when this system that Kaani established and became operational, it became urgent for the IDF to attack and disrupt it. The relatively numerous attacks in recent weeks in Syrian territory and attributed to Israel were probably intended for this purpose and included a variety of targets, both near the border with Israel and in the north. Syria.

Tonight it was the turn of the central Iranian rear line in eastern Syria, on the banks of the Euphrates River, near the Iraqi border. Looking at the map, it was clearly not a simple operation. He was also more lethal than previous attacks. The Syrian opposition reported a large number of targets that were attacked with great precision and Syrian military personnel and foreign Shiite militias who were killed in the attacks, which were in the urban area of ​​al-Bukhamel and Deir a-Zour, where Iranian emissaries were located in the heart of the Syrian population.

It can also be estimated that Air Force planes that flew hundreds of kilometers in Syrian airspace included, among other things, elusive F-35s. It can also be estimated that precise guided armaments were used to hit at least ten targets, some of which were in urban territory, in order to avoid accidental damage to the Syrian population. Indeed, there are no reports of Syrian civilians injured in the attack tonight.

According to Syrian opposition reports, the Imam Ali camp was attacked and destroyed in and around the city of Deir a-Zor, missile depots and other munitions were destined to be sent to Lebanon and other Syrian provinces during the war. The damage seemed to be accurate and that the very extensive air blow had achieved its purpose. Presumably the timing of the attack was set due to two additional considerations, the clear weather in recent weeks making it easier to accurately attack in good visibility conditions and the change of government in Washington.

In Israel, it is estimated that the Biden administration may reduce its political freedom of action to operate the IDF within the framework of the IDF. The Trump administration has given full freedom of action and even much to cooperate with Israel in both intelligence and operations. The Biden administration will be sympathetic to Israel, but there is still uncertainty in the campus about the policy it will adopt in relation to military activity attributed to Israel in neighboring countries. There was a signal to the Biden administration and Syrian President Bashar Assad that Israel would continue to thwart Iran’s subversive intentions in the region.

Kaani who has already visited Syria four times since February 2020 may have to come for another urgent visit to recalculate a route. But it seems that Iran does not intend to give up its plans to occupy and achieve hegemony in the Middle East and a major campaign against Israel.