Israel Is the New Front in the Syrian War

As Hezbollah gains ground in the Golan, Iran is now

knocking on the door of Israels quietest border.

BY PHILLIP SMYTH-JANUARY 28, 2015

On the afternoon of Jan. 28, two Israeli soldiers were killed during
aHezbollah missile attack in Shebaa Farms, a disputed strip of land in
the Golan Heights abutting southern Lebanon. Israel Defense Forces
positions along the border in Mount Hermon were also mortared.
Earlier in the day, following a Jan. 27 rocket attack launched into an
Israeli section of the Golan, the Israeli Air Force hit Syrian Army
artillery positions.
After the fatal Hezbollah attack, Israel responded again, shelling southern

Lebanon and accidentally killing a Spanish U.N. peacekeeper. To some

analysts, the possibility of another Hezbollah-Israel conflict, la 2006,
raised its head once more. Yet the current tit-for-tat fighting hides larger
moves on the strategic chessboard of the Middle East.
The current conflagration has roots in a Jan. 18 Israeli helicopter gunship
missile strike near the Syrian city of Quneitra, in the Golan Heights. The
attack delivered perhaps the highest-profile blow to Hezbollah and Iranian
interests in Syria since the outbreak of war there. The casualties from the
attack, which reportedly surprised even Israel, included an Iranian general
and several Hezbollah commanders. The deaths of this group shed light on
Hezbollahs geostrategic machinations, and illustrate just how closely the
Lebanese paramilitary organization operates with its Iranian masters.
Among the Hezbollah commanders killed was Muhammad Ahmed Issa, also
known as Abu Issa, the only martyr commander officially announced by
Hezbollah. According to the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar, Abu Issa had
been a member of Hezbollah since 1985, during the groups early
developmental stages. There were also claims that Abu Ali Tabatabai was
killed in the strike. Tabatabai has been described as either an Iranian or as a
leading Hezbollah commander in control of one of the groups major rapid
reaction/special forces units, responsible for operations within Israel and
Syria.
It was claimed by Hezbollah and repeated by the Lebanese Broadcasting

Corporation that the group was on a field inspection. In the Golan,

elements attached to Lebanese Hezbollah had engaged Syrian moderate
rebels and Sunni jihadi groups such as al-Nusra Front. It was reported in
mid- to late-2014 that some rebel elements had launched offensives in the
area. Nusra, in particular, had been advancing near the town of Quneitra. In
areas directly abutting the Golan, widely known as the southern front,
moderate rebel advances have been increasingly billed as a potential
alternative modelto Bashar al-Assad or jihadi rule.For Hezbollah, the rebel
advances in the southern front were another thorn in its side in the mission
to bolster Assad and craft a new secure front against Israel.
The strategic importance of this region was further underlined by the
presence of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Gen. Mohammad Ali
Allahdadi, who, along with five other Iranians, was among those killed in the
Jan. 18 Israeli strike.
Tehran had promised to respond to the attack; a day before the Jan. 28
retributive strike it even reportedly went through diplomatic channels
with the United States to once more threaten Israel with a response. The
killing of a high-ranking Iranian military leader who was directly cooperating
with Hezbollah commanders comes on the heels of increasing reports of
open IRGC activity in Lebanon. Irans Revolutionary Guards have been
active in the Syria campaign, coordinating operations with Hezbollah
against moderate Syrian rebel forces and Sunni jihadis, but they have

continued to lose members in Syria. As far back as August 2012, Syrian

rebels claimed to have kidnapped over 40 Iranians associated with the
Revolutionary Guards. Losses aside, Iran and its proxies have larger
strategic aims than simply winning territory back from Sunni rebel and
jihadi groups.
The youth brigade
A particular casualty illustrates these goals. The most well-known and wellpublicized Hezbollah member to die in the Jan. 18 attack was Jihad Imad
Mughniyeh, the son of Hezbollahs terror mastermind Imad Mughniyeh.
Jihads father, who likely involved in the 1983 bombing of U.S. and French
peacekeepers in Beirut and the 1983 bombings in Kuwait, and
was indicted in the United States for his involvement in the 1985 hijacking
of TWA Flight 847, was killed in a murky Damascus car bomb assassination
in early 2008. Like his father before him, Jihad Mughniyehs funeral was
held in the Hezbollah-dominated neighborhood of Dahiyeh, south of Beirut,
and was attended by thousands. Mourners shouted Death to America and
Death to Israel as the casket was carried through the throngs of Hezbollah
supporters.
Jihads pedigree was a key element of his rise within Hezbollah, but
nepotism was not the sole reason. While the younger Mughniyeh had
thewasta, he seemingly followed in the path of other Hezbollah fighters. As
a child he was a member of Hezbollahs Imam al-Mahdi Scouts, an

organization that serves as an incubator for youths to later become full

Hezbollah members and fighters. Reportedly, photos emerged on
Hezbollah-linked social media showing Jihad taking part in parades for the
group. Still, claims of his military prowess have remained elusive.
While little confirmable information exists regarding how Jihad moved up
the ranks within Hezbollah, a number of reports had surfaced claiming he
was active within Syria. In late 2013, Free Syrian Army intelligence sources
claimed Jihad was presented with command over Hezbollahs developing
Golan file.
Despite his youth he was reportedly born in 1989, placing him in his mid20s Jihad had a long history of publicly advocating for Hezbollah with
high-profile patrons. Promoted in social media and other news sites, the
younger Mughniyeh was photographed with Hezbollah Secretary
GeneralHassan Nasrallah, IRGC Quds Force leader Qassem Suleimani,
Iranian generals, diplomats, and even Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khamenei.
Following his fathers assassination in Damascus, Jihad cultivated a
decidedly more public image than his late father. He was active in
Hezbollahs student wing at the Lebanese American University and graced
Hezbollahs al-Manar TV, praising martyrs like his father. In a 2008 speech,
dressed in military fatigues during the memorial ceremony for his father
and other Hezbollah leaders, Jihad took to the stage, chanting, At your

service, Nasrallah. And during 2013s annual memorial for martyr leaders,
Jihad once again ascended to the stage.
Regardless, Jihad Mughniyeh whose name was reportedly later scrolled
across mortar shells lobbed into Israeli positions was likely more
important in death than he was operationally, particularly for Hezbollahs
youth. Its worth noting that many of the Hezbollah figures killed alongside
Jihad were just as young as him: Ali Hassan Ibrahim (reportedly born in
1993), Ghazi Ali Dhawi (reportedly born in 1988), and Muhammad Ali
Hassan Abu al-Hassan (reportedly born in 1985). Its likely that these all
were lower-level Hezbollah ground commanders in charge of smaller units
or geographic zones in the Golan Heights.
A shift in power along the Syrian border
While the Jan. 18 attack represents another saga in the long-running war
between Israel and Hezbollah, it also underlines a strategic power shift
between Iran and the Assad regime. Hezbollahs success in opening a new
front in the Golan has been a major accomplishment. With greater access to
the Golan or at least sections of it Hezbollah has a new, non-Lebanese
zone it can utilize to target Israel. This may have been Hezbollahs primary
goal all along. Long before Syrias brutal civil war, it was Hafez and Bashar
al-Assad who used Lebanon, and often Hezbollah, as a front to exact their
military goals against Israel. Now the tables have turned, and it is Hezbollah
and its masters in Tehran who can choose areas of Syria to use against

Israel.
For Iran and its Hezbollah proxy, this success is a step in a process to
militarily encircle the Israelis. Tehran is currently re-solidifying its
relationship with Hamas in Gaza, addressing a push for a southern front
against Jerusalem. If needed, the Golans near-anarchic conditions also
provide Hezbollah with plausible deniability (in the odd case it wishes to
deny it had a role in attacking the Jewish state). Geographically, the
domination of the Golan potentially creates a Hezbollah-dominated zone
stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordanian border.
Tensions have already occurred between Hezbollah and Israel in the Golan
and on the Israel-Lebanon border.As early as May 2013, Bashar al-Assad
had announced that the Golan would become a resistance front. This was
followed by threats made by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
General Command (PFLP-GC), Assads Palestinian proxy, claiming that it
would send fighters to battle the Israelis in the area. Hezbollah also
followed up with calls that it would liberate Syrias Golan. On March 5,
2014, Hezbollah fighters attempted to plant an improvised explosive device
(IED), an operation thwarted by Israeli forces. But fewer than 10 days after
that attempt, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for an IED attack near the
Israel-Lebanon border that wounded four Israeli soldiers in the northern
Golan. And another Lebanon-based IED attack occurred in October 2014,
which Hezbollah was accused of organizing.

Reportedly, Hezbollah has also created proxy groups in the region: In the
words of one Israeli general, Hezbollah gives [these groups] the IEDs and
the Iranians give them the inspiration. In early 2014, photos emerged of
Abu Shahed al-Jabbouri, the leader of Liwa Dhulfiqar, an Iraqi Shiitemanned militia bolstering Bashar al-Assads rule, posing in the Golan near
the border with Israel. Hezbollah had assisted in the creation of Liwa
Dhulfiqar and had operated with the group in Syria. For Israel, it seems,
enough is enough. If the Jan. 18 airstrike on Jihad and company was an
attempt to eliminate some of the more high-profile planners of these
attacks, then the Jan. 28 shelling of Syrian artillery positions can been seen
as a signal to Damascus, Hezbollah, and Tehran: The opening of a Golan
front would not be tolerated.
Israel is understandably worried about encirclement. But this development
is not simply limited to Israel. With the Houthi victory in Yemen, increased
tensions in Bahrain, and Irans numerous Shiite militia proxies projecting
their power in Iraq, Saudi Arabia is also facing a more fractious but similar
predicament to the Israelis in Tehrans new geographic arc of influence.
But Hezbollah and Tehran are not easily cowed. The attack on Jan. 28
that killed two Israeli soldiers has demonstrated that the price of not
retaliating outweighed the risks of sparking a broader regional war.
Hezbollah hardly wants to appear as if its hands are tied fighting Sunni
elements in Syria. With four anti-tank missiles fired in the Shebaa Farms,

and mortars launched at Mount Hermon (and possibly coordinated with

Tuesdays rocket attack), Hezbollah seems intent on revenge and
showing Israel that the Jewish state is still Target No. 1.