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18-11-2020
DAMASCUS/ TEHRAN/ JERUSALEM/ WASHINGTON: Israel has launched air raids on Syria, killing and injuring dozens more soldiers and civilians, in what the Israeli army called a retaliatory attack after it found explosive devices along its northern border.
The air strikes were against what it called a wide range of Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria, sending a signal on Wednesday that Israel will pursue its policy of striking across the border despite US President Donald Trump’s election defeat.
Israel said it was retaliating for what it called an Iranian-sponsored operation, in which Syrians planted explosives near an Israeli military base in the occupied Golan Heights.
Israel has frequently attacked what it says are Iranian-linked targets in Syria in recent years, and stepped up such attacks over the past year in what Western intelligence sources describe as a shadow war to reduce Iran’s influence but Wednesday’s attacks struck a far wider range of targets than usual, and the Israeli military was more forthcoming about the details than it has been in the past, suggesting a clear intention to send a public message.
‘Israeli aggression’
In a statement on Wednesday, the Israeli military said its fighter jets hit “military targets belonging to the Iranian Quds force and the Syrian Armed Forces” in the overnight strikes.
Western countries say the Quds Force of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards is responsible for supporting Tehran’s allies in proxy conflicts across the Middle East.
Targets also included “storage facilities, headquarters and military compounds” as well as “Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries”.
The Syrian state news agency SANA reported three military personnel were killed and one was wounded in the “Israeli aggression”.
Israel has carried out hundreds of air and missile attacks on Syria since civil war broke out in 2011, targeting Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces as well as government troops. It rarely acknowledges individual raids but has done so when responding to what it describes as aggression inside Israeli territory.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had discovered improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on its side of the occupied Golan Heights. It called the incident “further clear proof of the Iranian entrenchment in Syria”.
Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz, on a visit to the northern border on Tuesday, said Israel would not tolerate the planting of explosives in the Golan, territory captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.
“We cannot turn a blind eye to this. It’s a grave incident,” Gantz told reporters.
Israel’s military said it “holds the Syrian regime responsible for all the actions perpetrated from its territory and will continue to operate as necessary against the Iranian entrenchment in Syria”.
‘Shadow war’
Iran has been a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government throughout the civil war that has killed more than 380,000 and erupted after the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Al-Assad’s government has never publicly acknowledged there are Iranian forces operating on its behalf in Syria’s civil war.
Western intelligence sources say the increase in Israeli strikes on Syria this year is part of a shadow war approved by Washington in a bid to check Iran’s military reach.
Wednesday’s raids came hours before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was set to land in Israel for talks including on Iran, in what is likely to be his last visit to the country before Trump leaves office in January.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called Trump his country’s strongest-ever ally in the White House, has heaped praised on the administration for its hard-line approach towards Iran.
Trump’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran has included sanctions and scrapping of the nuclear deal agreed between Tehran and world powers during Barack Obama’s presidency.
Israeli experts have said Netanyahu is concerned that President-elect Joe Biden, Obama’s former vice president, will seek to re-engage Iran diplomatically, possibly by restoring the nuclear deal.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran would fully implement its 2015 nuclear deal if US President-elect Joe Biden lifts sanctions on Tehran, which Zarif said could be done swiftly through “three executive orders”.
Biden has pledged to rejoin the historic 2015 accord – agreed to by six world powers known as the P5 + 1 – if Iran also returns to compliance but diplomats and analysts have said it was unlikely to happen overnight as the distrustful adversaries would both want additional commitments from each other.
Zarif did not insist on any compensation from the United States – unlike leaders such as President Hassan Rouhani who have demanded it in exchange for the “damages” Tehran has suffered under the renewed US sanctions, implicitly arguing Washington should repay it for the lost oil revenues.
“If Biden is willing to fulfill US commitments, we too can immediately return to our full commitments in the accord 
and negotiations are possible within the framework of the P5 + 1,” Zarif said in an interview posted on the website of the state-run daily Iran on Wednesday.
“We are ready to discuss how the United States can re-enter the accord,” Zarif said. “The situation will improve in the next few months. Biden can lift all sanctions with three executive orders.”
‘No negotiation or conditions’
In the deal with the US and other world powers, Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief. It began breaching the nuclear deal after President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018 and started ratcheting up unilateral sanctions on Tehran.
“This can be done automatically and with no need to set conditions: the United States carries out its duties under 
(Security Council Resolution) 2231 [lift sanctions] and we will carry out our commitments under the nuclear deal,” said Zarif in a video recording of the interview issued by the newspaper.
“This needs no negotiation or conditions and it’s feasible.”
Security Council resolution 2231, adopted in 2015, endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which had seen Tehran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Zarif voiced hope the sanctions can be lifted “in a matter of months” after Biden takes office. “This may happen in a matter of months considering, as I said, Mr Biden hasn’t yet been able to establish his transition team.”
Trump was defeated by Biden in the November 3 US presidential election but he has refused to concede and has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud. (Int’l News Desk)
