BEIRUT: Israel’s airstrikes in the Damascus area Sunday marked the eighth separate sortie against suspected advanced weapons systems destined for Hezbollah since January 2013, when Israel launched its policy of pre-emptive raids against stockpiles of what it considers “game-changing” weapons.
They also were the first to be acknowledged by the Syrian authorities since May 2013, when Israeli aircraft staged two attacks on Damascus airport and military facilities to the west of the capital. Some three weeks after those attacks, which were reportedly against consignments of Fateh-110 guided surface-to-surface missiles, President Bashar Assad told Al-Manar TV that if Israel attacked again there would be a retaliation.
In the months that followed, however, Israel is believed to have struck another three times against targets in Syria, all of them in the northern coastal area near Latakia. The Syrian authorities either ignored the attacks or played them down as stray explosions from fighting against rebel forces in the area.
On Feb. 24 of this year, Israel staged its seventh airstrike, this time on Lebanese soil. The target was a building in a Hezbollah military zone south of Janta in the Bekaa Valley suspected of being used for the transfer of weapons from Syria.
Hezbollah admitted that one of its facilities had been attacked and promised retaliation. It came over the course of the next two weeks with four small-scale attacks, or attempted attacks, all of which, bar one, occurred in the Golan Heights.
The exception was a roadside bomb ambush in the Shebaa Farms – the first since the end of the 2006 war – which was subsequently acknowledged by Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general.
With its retaliatory attacks, Hezbollah had set a precedent that it would not follow Damascus’ example of ignoring Israeli airstrikes but instead would hit back if its facilities on Lebanese soil were targeted.
Following Sunday’s airstrikes in the Damascus area, there has been the usual speculation about what weapons were targeted. Some reports suggested more Fateh 110 missiles were destroyed, others claimed the targets were Hezbollah pilotless drones or air defense systems which were to be delivered to Lebanon.
The locations of the attacks were a section of Damascus airport and a military base near Dimas on the highway between the Syrian capital and the border with Lebanon. It is unclear which base was hit near Dimas. Most military facilities in the area are related to air defense or artillery rather than weapons storage.
There is a sizeable military facility some 3 kilometers east of the town. A Google Earth image dated Aug. 8, 2013, shows a number of missiles on the back of trucks at the base which the London-based IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly has identified as SA-6 “Gainful” anti-aircraft missiles.
Sunday’s air raid was strikingly similar to a previous bombing raid on May 2, 2013, when Israeli aircraft also attacked a military base in the Dimas area and facilities at Damascus airport. The attacking aircraft, on both occasions, used Lebanese airspace as a corridor to get close to their targets. Israeli aircraft have in the past launched their missiles from Lebanese airspace to hit targets between Damascus and the border with Lebanon, a relatively close distance, to avoid Syria’s dense air defense network around the Syrian capital. Damascus airport, however, lies to the southeast of Damascus, about 50 kilometers from the Lebanese border.
Jeremy Binnie, the Middle East editor of IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly, speculated to The Daily Star that the airstrikes around Dimas may have been intended to destroy air defense systems to pave the way for the main attack on suspected Hezbollah weaponry at Damascus airport.
“[Damascus] airport is actually a little further from the Lebanese border than other airstrikes that have hit targets west of Damascus, where Israeli aircraft can probably safely launch their weapons from inside Lebanese airspace,” Binnie said. “So one speculation is that the [Dimas] strikes are serving to suppress air defenses ... thereby punching a small hole in Syria’s air defenses that other Israeli aircraft can use for a low-level run on the airport.”
The question now is whether there will be any retaliation for Sunday’s airstrikes and if so by whom and how. Syria, despite acknowledging the air raids, is unlikely to respond directly. Its military capabilities are overstretched in confronting rebel forces and it cannot afford to risk an escalation with the powerful Israeli military.
On the other hand, Hezbollah in the past year and a half has demonstrated a shade more assertiveness toward Israel compared to the seven-year hiatus in attacks against Israeli troops following the 2006 war.
In August 2013, Hezbollah ambushed Israeli soldiers infiltrating Lebanese territory at Labboune on the southern border and this year has launched two roadside bomb attacks in the Shebaa Farms.
Hezbollah is acutely sensitive to claims that it has taken its eye off the Israeli ball because of its preoccupation with the war in Syria. The Labboune ambush and the two bomb attacks in the Shebaa Farms this year were intended to signal to Israel that Hezbollah remains focused on the southern front and will not allow the Israelis to try and take advantage of the party’s intervention in Syria to alter the rules of the game between the two sides.
If Hezbollah was to retaliate to Sunday’s strikes, its options are fewer than earlier in the year. The Syrian regime has lost ground in the Golan Heights to rebel forces in the past three months which has reduced Hezbollah’s ability to use the area as an alternative theater of retaliation to the United Nations-delineated Blue Line.
Israel’s policy of attacking “game-changing” weapons systems will likely continue as long as targets can be identified, irrespective of whether they are in Syria or Lebanon. Hezbollah, which 24 hours after the Israeli air raids has yet to offer any official comment on them, will probably refrain from action this time and keep its powder dry for the next time Israel hits a target inside Lebanon.
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