The Israeli military’s official Twitter account has issued an ominous warning to Tehran, warning the Islamic Republic that it was being ‘watched’, and saying that Israeli intelligence “can confirm that the Iranian Quds Force Unit 840, which is part of Iran’s global network of terror, was responsible for the IED attacks on the Israel-Syria border this week and in August 2020”.
“We will not allow Iran to entrench itself in Syria,” the tweet emphasized.
Earlier, the IDF’s Twitter posted what it said was “operational footage” of the latest Israeli attacks on ‘Iranian’ and Syrian Army targets in Syria, accompanying photos released earlier purporting to show the targets which were struck.
“Let this be a warning: If you attack Israel, we will defend ourselves,” the IDF warned.
Early Wednesday morning, Syrian media reported multiple explosions in the sky above Damascus, characterising them as an act of “Israeli aggression”. Tel Aviv, which normally doesn’t comment on its military operations in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere, offered a rare confirmation that it was responsible for the attack, claiming that its warplanes had struck “Iranian Quds and Syrian Armed Forces targets.” The attacks were described as a response to the burying of multiple homemade bombs in the southern Golan Heights, a chunk of Syrian territory occupied by Israel in 1967 and ‘annexed’ in 1981. The United Nations condemned the annexation as “null and void and without international legal effect.”
Israel regularly carries out attacks on Syrian soil, claiming that its operations are aimed at countering the entrenchment of ‘Iranian’ or ‘Iran-backed’ forces in the Arab Republic. The Syrian government has regularly condemned Tel Aviv for its actions, stressing that it is Damascus’s sovereign right to station whatever foreign forces it wants to on its own territory, and adding that Iran’s military presence is limited to advisors and arms assistance aimed at helping the country in its near-decade long battle with jihadist extremists, including al-Qaeda* and Daesh (ISIS)*.
* Terrorist groups outlawed in Russia and many other countries.