The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reinforced Israeli military positions along the Syrian border in the Golan Heights on Friday, after rebels in southern Syria joined their northern counterparts in advancing against the Syrian regime.
The dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad — who took over from his father, Hafez, upon his death in 2000 — is backed by Iran and Russia. But it is staggering after a week-long advance by Syrian rebels, including Islamist forces, who took the initiative after the defeat of Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, a force that Iran had used in the Syrian civil war. Rebels captured the city of Aleppo, then the city of Hama, and are advancing rapidly as regime forces are in retreat.
Israel has pointedly refused to take a side in the conflict, regarding both sides as enemies, except to say that it has concerns about the fate of the Kurdish minority in the north of the country, which has pulled back from the fighting.
Turkey, which opposes the Kurds, is backing the Syrian rebels against the regime — even though Turkey also supports the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists in their war against Israel. For now, Israel is not the focus: the Assad regime is.
Nevertheless, the collapse of the regime could unleash new threats to Israel, which is why the IDF is preparing to contain the chaos to Syria and protect Israeli territory on the Golan, which it took in a defensive war in 1967.
The IDF said in a statement:
Based on the situational assessment that has been ongoing since yesterday in the General Staff and Northern Command, and following developments in the internal conflict in Syria, the IDF is reinforcing aerial and ground forces in the Golan Heights area.
IDF troops are deployed along the border and the IDF is monitoring developments and is prepared for all scenarios, offensive and defensive alike. The IDF will not tolerate threats near the Israeli border and will thwart any threat against the State of Israel.
Social media reports suggests that Assad is pulling his forces back to Damascus to dig in against a rebel attempt to take over the country. Russia has done little in defense of its client state thus far, aside from some bombing of rebel targets last week.
Iran has been unable to stop the rebel advance, despite sending new advisers and militias into Syria.
Both Russia and Iran look weak, as one of the Middle East’s oldest and worst tyrannies stands on the edge of defeat.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
