January 18, 2015

Netanyahoo Responds To Nasrallah Speech With Big Escalation

Update (Jan 19 2:00pm)

It turned out today that the highest rank killed and main target of the attack was not the Hizbullah special force commander in Syria and the other Hizbullah fighters but Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps commander in Syria General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi. The general was new to the job and will certainly soon be replaced.

While some Jabhat al-Nusra media claim that Jabhat was responsible for the attack the UN observer mission on the Golan height says it observed drones from Israel above the area of the attack. It added:

"This incident is a violation of the 1974 Agreement on Disengagement between Israeli and Syrian forces."

Original post follows

Three days ago the leader of the Lebanese Hizbullah, Hassan Nasrallah, warned Israel against "stupid moves":

A key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Nasrallah said that Israeli strikes on Syria "target the whole of the resistance axis,” which includes Hezbollah, Damascus and Tehran. Nasrallah said Hezbollah fighters in Syria are battling extremist groups in an attempt to thwart threats for Syria, Lebanon and the entire region. Describing the fight in Syria as “existential,” he said the plot against the neighboring country targets the resistance and their intervention into Syria was in order to preserve the country as well as Lebanon. "The repeated bombings that struck several targets in Syria are a major violation, and we consider that any strike against Syria is a strike against the whole of the resistance axis, not just against Syria," he told the Beirut-based Arab news television. "The axis is capable of responding. This can happen any time," he warned.

Israel disregarded the warning. It today attacked a Hizbullah convoy on the Syrian side of the Golan heights and killed the Hizbullah commander in Syria as well as six other Hizbullah fighters. One of those killed today was Jihad Imad Mughniyeh the son of Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyeh killed by Israeli agents a few years ago. The attack was carried out by missiles released from a helicopter within Israeli borders.

Two points about the attack:

Israel is supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria, aka Jabhat al-Nusra, in the Syrian part of the Golan height. The attack on Hizbullah today must (also) be understood as direct Israeli support for Al-Qaeda.

How did Israel know where to hit? Either Hizbullah's communication security was lousy, or there is a(nother) spy in Hizbullah's ranks or this was pure luck. I do not believe that such a "success" is just pure luck. The missile attack points to exact knowledge of the position of the target which lets me believe that some opf those killed might have carried a known cell phone or some other electronic beacon.

Hizbullah reacted so far by immediately putting its forces at the Lebanese Israeli border on alarm while Israeli intensified its (illegal) overflights of Lebanese territory.

I do not doubt that Hizbullah will retaliate harshly for this attack. But it will do so on a timetable that fits its needs and capabilities. I therefore find an immediate response, though justified, not very likely. But I do expect an answer within the next two month before the general election in Israel.

Nasrallah's speech three days ago was relatively aggressive. Netanyahoo now challenged that by escalating the situation. He calculates that Hizbullah can not response effectively or not within a time frame that would endanger his election chances. That may well turn out to have been a huge mistake.

Posted by b on January 18, 2015 at 19:18 UTC | Permalink

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