Israel believes the explosive device detonated late Friday against an Israel Defense Forces jeep on the border with Syria on the Golan Heights was the work of people associated with the Assad regime, and not the global jihad organizations working to topple the regime. The blast, the first incident of its kind on the border since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war nearly three years ago, caused no casualties. But it caused concern in Israel because it was the first incident that clearly wasn’t an accidental overshoot from the Syrian fighting.

Over the past two years, there have been incidents of light arms fire every few weeks over the border into Israel, and in a couple of cases mortar shells have fallen west of the border fence on the Golan.

But in most of the incidents the IDF said the gunfire was simply an error in the heat of the intermittent battles between the Syrian army and the various rebel organizations close to the border. When the shooting recurred relatively frequently, or when it endangered Israeli communities, the IDF retaliated by firing rockets and occasionally tank shells at the source of the shooting, after identifying it. Sometimes the fire came from Syrian soldiers and sometimes from the rebels, but in most instances it was the result of an error in assessing the range or a case of mistaken identity.

This time, however, a bomb was detonated near the fence and lightly damaged an IDF jeep. The investigation revealed that it was a deliberate activation of an explosive charge and not a mine that exploded by accident.

The incident occurred in the northern Golan Heights, near the largest Druze village of Khader, on the Syrian side of the border near Mount Hermon. A senior security official told Haaretz yesterday that there is no presence in that area of insurgents affiliated with the global jihad organizations, which are radical Islamic factions inspired by Al-Qaida.

The area is controlled by the Syrian army. The area’s Druze maintain good relations with President Bashar Assad’s regime and avoid contact with rebel groups. Against this background, the assumption in Israel is that this was actually a move by the regime.

However, it has not yet been clarified whether it was the initiative of military personnel stationed in the area or ordered from above.

A few months ago, after a series of air strikes in Syrian territory attributed to Israel that hit convoys of weapons and bases where Syria was storing weapons to be transferred to Hezbollah, Assad’s people threatened on several occasions that his government would consider opening a “resistance front” against Israel in the Golan Heights. To date, Israel has been skeptical about this possibility, assessing that Assad would prefer to avoid any significant confrontation with the IDF.

The senior security official said Israel would now have to be extremely cautious with regard to what happens at the border, and prepare for the possibility of more serious escalation.