WarSclerotic

A suicide attack on Wednesday on a bus carrying members of the Revolutionary Guards in southeastern Iran killed at least 27 people.

“The suicide attack on an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps personnel bus happened on the Khash-Zahedan road,” IRNA said.

The road is located in the volatile southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan.

The Guards issued a statement confirming the attack. It said the troops were returning from the border.

“In this suicide attack a car filled with explosives blew up besides a bus carrying a unit of the Guards’ ground forces causing the martyrdom and wounding of a number of the protectors of our Islamic homeland’s border,” the statement read.

Iranian state media blamed the al-Qaeda-linked Sunni extremist group Jaish al-Adl for the bombing.

The semi-official Fars news agency reported 40 members of the IRGC were on board the bus at the time of the attack.

The attack took place in the volatile southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan which has a large, mainly Sunni Muslim ethnic Baluchi community that straddles the border with Pakistan.

On January 29 three members of an Iranian bomb squad sent to the scene of an explosion in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, were wounded when a second device blew up as they were trying to defuse it, police said at the time.

And in early December last year two people were killed and around 40 others wounded in the port city of Chabahar, also in Sistan-Baluchistan, in an attack which Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the time blamed on “foreign-backed terrorists” — a reference to Sunni Muslim extremists.

Last September at least 29 people were killed and over 60 wounded in an attack on an IRGC parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. It was the deadliest such attack in Iran in nearly a decade.

Militants disguised as soldiers opened fire on the annual Iranian military parade in an attack claimed by the Islamic State terrorist group.

Iranian authorities blamed “jihadist separatists” for the assault claiming they were backed by Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United States.

The attack comes just days after Iran marked 40 years since the Islamic Revolution with numerous high-profile events.

Monday was the culmination of official celebrations called the “10 Day Dawn” that mark the period between February 1 and February 11, 1979, when Shiite cleric Khomeini returned from exile and ousted the shah’s last government.

Israel’s campaign of airstrikes in Syria has driven Iran to change tack in the country, moving the bulk of its troops and bases away from the Israeli border and toward what it sees as a safer location closer to Iraq, according to Military Intelligence assessments released Wednesday.

At the same time, the report said Iran appears to be adopting a more aggressive stance toward Israel, as evident by its launch of a missile into the northern Golan Heights last month, in response to a reported strike by the Israel Defense Forces. While most troops are being moved away, some pro-Iranian forces remain on the border with Israel and have established observation posts from which they can monitor Israeli military activities.

The intelligence report said Iran’s inclination to retaliate against Israeli airstrikes appears to be buoyed by the Syrian military’s recent acquisition of advanced Russian S-300 air defense batteries. The IDF does not believe Syrian troops have yet been fully trained to operate the powerful anti-aircraft system, but the military is prepared to destroy it the first time an S-300 battery fires at Israeli aircraft — despite the potential diplomatic blowback from Moscow, which gave Damascus the system.

In Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces believes the restive enclave may soon see another major conflict — the fourth in just over a decade — as its Hamas rulers may deliberately spark a destructive war as a way to gain both international sympathy and, afterwards, an influx of reconstruction funds to replenish its empty coffers.

The assessments were part of Military Intelligence’s forecast for 2019, portions of which were released to the media by the IDF on Wednesday.

A Palestinian protester throws a tear gas canister towards Israeli forces during clashes following a demonstration along the border with Israel, east of Gaza City on January 25, 2019. (Mahmud Hams/AFP)

Military Intelligence also believes Iran is still adhering to the 2015 nuclear deal, under which Tehran agreed to limit its production of nuclear material and in exchange receive sanctions relief, despite the United States dropping out of the deal in 2017 — echoing similar findings released by American intelligence services earlier this month.

The military believes that were Iran to decide to break from the agreement, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it would take approximately one year for the country to produce fissile material and another year to turn that into a functioning bomb. No such decision has been made, though Israeli Military Intelligence believes Iranian officials are considering violating the nuclear deal by enriching uranium beyond the allowed limit — as a negotiation tactic.

Iran under pressure from sanctions

Israel sees a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat, and Israeli officials have vowed that the Jewish state would take all actions necessary to prevent such an occurrence.

A group of protesters chant slogans at the main gate of old grand bazaar in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 25, 2018. (Iranian Labor News Agency via AP)

The IDF believes the return of American sanctions against Iran are causing serious problems for the cash-strapped regime. As a result of the renewed sanctions, Tehran has scaled back its financial support for militias in Syria and Iraq, the Israeli military believes.

Domestically, the Iranian government is also facing significant criticism in light of the country’s deteriorating economy — the cost of food has more than doubled in some cases — casting a pall over the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of the 1979 revolution which brought the Islamic government to power.

However, a grassroots movement to overthrow the regime does not appear to be on the horizon, according to the IDF’s assessments.

Iran changing tactics in Syria

In addition to pulling its forces and weapons depots from areas close to Israel — including from the Damascus International Airport, which Israel has bombed on multiple occasions — Iran is also scaling back the number of troops in Syria, the Israel Defense Forces believes.

Satellite photos published on January 13, 2019 showing an alleged Iranian weapons depot at the Damascus International Airport in Syria (R) on January 11, and the same structure demolished on January 13 after an Israeli airstrike. (Intelli Times)

However, the Islamic Republic is not giving up on its plans to threaten and attack Israel, rather it is simply altering its methods to do so, the military believes.

This means moving its focus from the Golan and southern Syria and toward the Iraqi border. For instance, the weapons transports flown in to Damascus International Airport, which Israel has regularly targeted, would instead be sent to the T-4 air base near Palmyra.

Some parts of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ expeditionary Quds Force and the Shiite militias it supports also appear to be moving out of Syria and into Iraq. From there they could still threaten Israel with powerful missiles and potentially return to Syria if war breaks out.

While Iran’s focus may be shifting away from southern Syria, it is not abandoning the territory entirely, and indeed its actions there will be more difficult for Israel to counter now that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad controls the area.

When the Syrian Golan was under the control of opposition forces, pro-regime and pro-Iranian forces were less able to operate there freely. Now that Assad is in control of the territory, Shiite militias and Iranian forces are more able to establish military posts along the border with northern Israel.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that the IDF had carried out a tank strike on an Iranian-affiliated position in the Quneitra region in the Syrian Golan.

According to Israeli and Syrian media reports, the shelling was aimed at observation posts that pro-Iranian militias had set up on the border in order to track Israeli military activities.

In an unprecedented interview with an Israeli TV station broadcast Wednesday, the former Saudi intelligence chief and ex-ambassador to the US and UK accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of deceiving the Israeli public by claiming that Israeli ties with the wider Arab world can be warmed without the Palestinian issue being solved.

“Israeli public opinion should not be deceived into believing that the Palestinian issue is a dead issue,” Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud told Israel’s Channel 13 news in a lengthy interview in London. “From the Israeli point of view, Mr. Netanyahu would like us to have a relationship, and then we can fix the Palestinian issue. From the Saudi point of view, it’s the other way around.”

Asked by interviewer Barak Ravid whether that meant Netanyahu was “deceiving the Israeli public” by claiming to be able to “promote relations with the Arab world regardless of the Palestinians,” Prince Turki replied: “Absolutely. Absolutely.”

Asked why Netanyahu would do that, the prince said: “For his own purposes.” Laughing, he continued: “He’s a man who runs for election on platforms of ‘look what I have done for you. I have brought you this. I have brought you that.’ Like all politicians.”

The prince said the Saudi public has “a very negative view of Mr. Netanyahu because of what is happening on the ground,” and because of what he termed Netanyahu’s “hubristic attitude… praising himself.”

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Ironically, the interview was broadcast only hours after Netanyahu, who is in Poland, met with the foreign minister of Oman, and the two men discussed a new era for the Middle East. Netanyahu has said often that shared concern about Iran is one of the factors helping to gradually warm Israeli ties with Gulf states and others in the region.

“We don’t need Mr. Netanyahu to tell us the dangers that Iran poses,” the Saudi prince stressed. “We see it on the ground. We see their activities in Lebanon. We see their activities in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Bahrain, even in Saudi Arabia. So why should we wait for Mr. Netanyahu to highlight these things? We don’t need that.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) greets Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah at the sidelines of a regional conference on the Middle East in Warsaw, February 13, 2018 (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

Asked how he would advise the Trump administration as it prepares to present its peace plan, Prince Turki said simply: “The Arab Peace Initiative — take it on. Make it yours.”

He recalled that the late Saudi King Abdullah initiated the plan in 2002. “Basically it’s a quid pro quo: Israel withdraws from occupied Arab territories, in return for Arab recognition of Israel, end of hostilities and normal relations.”

However, he said, “from day one there has not been an Israeli response.” (In 2015, Netanyahu said he backed the “general idea” behind the initiative. Former prime minister Olmert indicated he saw it as a basis for discussion.)

“With Israeli money and Saudi brains, we can go far,” the prince said, but added: “Yes, if there is peace. Unfortunately,” he charged, “Israel chooses to ignore all the efforts of Saudi Arabia to make peace, and expects Saudi Arabia to put its hand in its [Israel’s] hand and go forward on technology, on water desalination, on issues like that. It’s not going to happen,” he exclaimed.

“Israel has not been very cooperative as far as achieving peace in our part of the world,” he also said.

Prince Turki insisted there was no difference between Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when it came to Israel, rejecting the notion that the king had curbed the crown prince’s inclination to warmer ties.

The crown prince “is a stalwart representative of Saudi policy,” he said, and the idea that there was a warmer stance from him was likely “wishful thinking on the part of Israeli officials.” The crown prince “supports the Palestinian cause to the fullest” and had no differences with the king “on any issue. He does what the king tells him.”

The Saudi prince clarified that he was giving the interview in a personal capacity, and “I do not represent the government of Saudi Arabia in any capacity whatsoever.” Nonetheless, asked if it was known in Riyadh that he would be speaking to an Israeli TV station, he said it was normal “courtesy and good manners” to tell people what he was going to be doing.

Ravid said Prince Turki had met with the Saudi king in the days before the interview, and that the prince was plainly conveying a message that Riyadh wants heard in Israel.

President Shimon Peres shakes hands with former US President Bill Clinton, during a meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2010 (Sergei Illin/Flash 90)

During his years in government, the prince said he had never held official meetings with Israelis, except with president Shimon Peres, over dinner in Davos. Peres suggested they hold more substantive, private talks, but Prince Turki said he demurred: “I told him, Mr. President, nothing in Israel remains a secret.”

He said he was speaking to Israeli television now because “we have to get our point across directly to the Israeli people.”

The prince, who is 73, said he had never been to Jerusalem and looked forward “to the day when there is peace between Israel and the Arab world, and I can visit what I consider to be not only a holy place, but a place of my history as an Arab and as a Muslim. Abraham, our father, is not only the father of the Jews. He is the father of the Arabs. Jerusalem is something I want to see before I die. Unfortunately, I’m not too optimistic that I’m going to see that.”

Asked whether he expected to witness a meeting between an Israeli prime minister and a Saudi king or crown prince in his lifetime, Prince Turki said: “In my lifetime — and there’s very little of it left to come — I don’t think I’m going to see that. Not before the Palestinian issue is resolved. I am looking for an Israeli peace initiative. I haven’t seen one. What is it that Israel thinks will make peace?”

The Hamas terror group may seek to spark a war with Israel in the near future in an attempt to elicit international sympathy and an influx of international aid money to the Gaza Strip, which it controls, according to an Israeli Military Intelligence assessment released Wednesday.

The Israel Defense Forces believes Hamas or the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the second largest terror group in Gaza, could attempt to draw Israel into a war by conducting an attack along the border — another anti-tank missile strike on a bus, an ambush from an as-yet-undiscovered tunnel or a similar low-level but significant attack.

According to the intelligence assessment, parts of which were distributed to reporters on Wednesday, while the Israeli military sees the northern arena — Lebanon and the Iranian entrenchment in Syria — as the larger challenges facing the Jewish state, the more immediate threats come from the Gaza Strip.

In light of this view, IDF chief Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, whose tenure began last month, called for the military to update operational plans for fighting in the Gaza Strip.

IDF chief Aviv Kohavi visits Southern Command in undated photograph. (Israel Defense Forces)

“Gaza, as it is noted in the annual intelligence assessment, is the most volatile region, and there is a risk of terror group’s initiating action [against Israel]. The chief of staff identified an improvement of readiness in that region as a top priority,” the military said.

“The identification of targets will be increased — both for retaliatory strikes and to assist in ground forces maneuvering within the Strip,” the army said.

Kohavi also called for the military to purchase two more Iron Dome missile defense systems. Currently, the Israeli Air Force possesses eight batteries — six that are operated by conscripts and two by reservists. “By the end of 2019, 10 batteries are intended to be deployed across the country — eight staffed by conscripts and two by reservists,” the army said.

The IDF believes the terror group is not interested in entering a long conflict with Israel, but envisions a short period of intense fighting after which it would be able to negotiate a ceasefire agreement that would improve its overall economic and political standing.

An operator walks by an Iron Dome missile defense battery near the city of Sderot in southern Israel on May 29, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Adding to the potential for war in Gaza, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in recent months has proven itself to be increasingly willing to clash with Israeli troops, despite Hamas’s opposition. Earlier this month, a sniper from the Iran-backed terror group opened fire at an IDF officer, hitting him in the helmet, causing light injuries.

This in part seems to come from the fact that Israel officially holds Hamas responsible for all violence coming from the Gaza Strip and thus directs its retaliatory strikes against Hamas targets and bases, meaning PIJ can carry out attacks without immediate consequences.

This represents a change from the IDF’s assessments in recent months, which had held that while Hamas wanted to maintain pressure on Israel with border violence, it was not interested in all-out conflict.

Masked Hamas gunmen attend the funeral of Mahmoud al-Nabaheen, 24, in the Bureij refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, on January 23, 2019. (MAHMUD HAMS / AFP)

Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since it overthrew the Palestinian Authority in a bloody coup in 2007, has faced increasing domestic pressure as the Strip’s economy has deteriorated during the interim 12 years in the face of a naval blockade by Israel and Egypt, which the countries say is necessary to prevent the terror group from importing large amounts of weaponry and war materiel into the coastal enclave.

International aid groups have warned in recent months that the Gaza Strip, which already has sweeping unemployment and limited access to electricity and water, is heading for a full humanitarian crisis.

In response to these dire economic straits, over the past year, the terror group has led a series of regular riots and protests along the border, dubbed the “Great March of Return,” which included the launching of thousands of airborne arson devices into southern Israel that caused millions of shekels of damage to farmland and nature reserves, as well as sporadic flareups of rocket and mortar fire, including one in November in which over 500 projectiles were fired at Israel.

Illustrative: A Palestinian protester uses a slingshot to hurl stones at Israeli forces across the border fence, during clashes following a demonstration along the border with Israel east of Gaza City on January 11, 2019. (Mahmud Hams/AFP)

Over 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops in the clashes along the border and thousands more have been injured since the protests began on March 30. During the same period, two Israeli soldiers have been killed and several others injured. A Palestinian man living in the Israeli city of Ashkelon was also killed in a rocket attack from the Gaza Strip.

In a bid to end the weekly, sometimes daily, violence along the border, Israel reached a ceasefire agreement with Hamas — with Egypt and a United Nations envoy acting as mediators — that extended the permitting fishing zone around the Gaza Strip to 12 nautical miles and, more importantly, allowed the Islamist terror group to receive tens of millions of dollars from Qatar.

However, the IDF believes Hamas thinks it could negotiate better economic incentives from Israel in the midst of a small-scale war than it can now.

In light of the potential for a renewed outbreak of violence, Kohavi has instructed the military to prepare responses to a variety of potential scenarios in the Gaza Strip.

In addition, the newly minted IDF chief formed a General Staff-level task force to create a bank of targets that the military could strike quickly, not only in Gaza but for every regional command.

“In addition, he created a task force to identify high-quality targets in the Gaza Strip ahead of a potential operation there, which will be led by Col. Ronen Geiger,” the army said.

This appeared to be a response to criticisms heard within the military and outside it that the air force and artillery attacked empty or otherwise worthless targets during the 2014 Gaza war.