BEIRUT: The joint offensive in Syria’s southern Qunaitra and Deraa provinces mounted by the Syrian army and Hezbollah could have significant ramifications for the fate of the Syrian regime and moderate rebel forces – and possibly trigger a conflict with Israel.
The offensive, which began last week, reportedly includes some 5,000 combatants, among them several hundred Hezbollah fighters, as well as contributions from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iraqi Shiite paramilitary forces and the loyalist National Defense Force militia.
The recent bad weather, which has blanketed much of the Golan with snow, has slowed the initial successful advance in which Syrian troops and Hezbollah fighters retook the villages of Deir al-Adas, Kfar Nasej and Kfar Shams which lie roughly midway between Damascus and Deraa. However, improved weather conditions will permit the resumption of air power, which should hasten their southbound advance.
Southern Syria is the only remaining battlefront featuring moderate and effective rebel forces. They include the Southern Front and the Southern Command both led by former Syrian army officers. Both groups are believed to have received training in Jordan and weapons from foreign backers.
If the Syrian army-Hezbollah offensive is successful and the moderate rebel forces are defeated or significantly rolled back, it will further leave the battlespace in Syria dominated by the Assad regime’s loyalists and the extremists of ISIS and the Nusra Front. Such an outcome would likely aid Assad’s goal of presenting to the international community the stark choice of either accepting his continued rule or facing the chaos of Islamic extremism.
In recent months, the rebel forces in southern Syria have gained ground in the Qunaitra and Deraa provinces. The Nusra Front has even reached as far north as Beit Jin, a village lying on the eastern slopes of Mount Hermon. These gains potentially threaten the southern and western flanks of Damascus. It is unclear whether the rebel forces have the capability to launch an offensive on the Syrian capital from the south, but the prospect is alarming to the Assad regime, especially if the opposition was able to cut the highway between Damascus and the border with Lebanon. The current operation by the Syrian army and Hezbollah appears intended, therefore, in part, to blunt any chance of the rebels mounting a “spring offensive” on Damascus.
If the offensive is successful it would allow Hezbollah to effectively extend its frontline with Israel from south Lebanon to the Yarmouk River, which marks the frontier between Jordan and Syria. Israel, therefore, is watching with some unease the offensive underway a few kilometers to the east from its frontline on the Golan.
Last October, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that the Israeli army was providing humanitarian assistance, such as blankets, food and medical aid, to some moderate rebel groups in the Golan.
“That happens on condition they don’t allow the more extremist organizations to reach the border,” he said, referring to the likes of the Nusra Front.
The Syrian regime confirmed that Israeli assistance to rebel forces goes far beyond humanitarian aid and includes the provision of weapons and tactical intelligence. Last week, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said the “popular uprising” in the Golan (actually the Syrian army, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite militias and the NDF militia) had thwarted Israeli attempts to establish a buffer zone in the area.
Whether Israeli support for the Syrian rebels is greater than mere humanitarian assistance is unclear. However, the current relationship mirrors then Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres’ “Good Fence” policy in 1976 when the Israeli army began providing humanitarian aid to the Christians of south Lebanon whose towns and villages were besieged by Palestinian militias. That initial humanitarian assistance led to discreet military support and ended up as a 2,500-strong militia, dubbed the South Lebanon Army, which was armed, trained and paid by Israel. Given Israel’s experience with the SLA (which it essentially abandoned during its troop withdrawal in May 2000), it is doubtful that it would want to establish and run a new militia as a buffer in the Golan.
Still, the Israelis have made it clear that they will not accept Hezbollah turning the Golan into a new frontline. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two weeks ago complained that Iran was attempting to “build an infrastructure of terror against Israel on the Golan Heights.”
It is in this context, perhaps, that one should assess the still puzzling and unusually provocative missile attack by Israeli drones near Qunaitra on Jan. 18 that killed six Hezbollah fighters, including two field commanders, and an Iranian general. Hezbollah retaliated to the Qunaitra strike by targeting an Israeli army convoy with anti-tank missiles, killing two soldiers.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack on the Hezbollah convoy although its drones were spotted by UNDOF peacekeepers. But the actual motive for what was an almost unprecedented act against Hezbollah – at least in the past decade and a half – is still uncertain. The impact could have been even stronger according to a report last week in the New York Times Magazine that claimed Mustafa Badreddine, a top Hezbollah commander, was also in the convoy but departed shortly before the attack. Vague comments leaked to the media by Israeli “security sources” suggest that the missile strike was an attempt to prevent Hezbollah from carrying out attacks on the Israeli side of the Golan.
Yet if Israel was willing to risk a war to kill the occupants of two Hezbollah vehicles near Qunaitra, what will it be prepared to do if the Syrian army offensive succeeds in driving rebel forces from the Golan, leaving Hezbollah fighters eyeing Israel from its new frontline?
Zvi Barel, a veteran Israeli commentator for Haaretz, wrote last week that Israel will accept Syrian rebels on the Golan, but the presence of Hezbollah and Iranian forces would be considered a “strategic turning point” and likely be met with “violent Israeli resistance.”
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