WarSclerotic

A former leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has warned that Iran is just looking for an excuse to attack Israel and “raze Tel Aviv to the ground,” blaming Israel for allegedly helping the US kill top commander Qassem Soleimani.

Speaking to Lebanon’s Hezbollah-affiliated al-Mayadeen TV station on Saturday, Mohsen Rezaei was asked if Iran would carry out its previous threats to attack Israel in the event of a war with the US.

“You should have no doubt about this. We would raze Tel Aviv to the ground for sure. We have been looking for such a pretext,” Rezaei said in remarks translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and released Monday.

Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s powerful Expediency Council, is considered a top politician and an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“If they (the US) do something, we can use it as a pretext to attack Israel, because Israel played a role in the martyrdom of General Soleimani,” he said, blaming Israel for tipping off the Americans to Soleimani’s location.

“We were waiting for the Americans to give us a pretext to strike Tel Aviv, just like we attacked Ayn Al-Assad,” he said referring to the US military base in Iraq, which Iran hit with several missiles in response to Soleimani’s killing.

This is not the first time Rezaei has threatened to destroy Israeli cities.

“Iran’s revenge against America for the assassination of Soleimani will be severe… Haifa and Israeli military centers will be included in the retaliation,” he said in January.

Following the Iranian attack on the US base and repeated Iranian threats, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran against attacking Israel.

“We’re standing steadfast against those who seek our lives. We’re standing with determination and with force. Whoever tries to attack us will receive a crushing blow in return,” he declared at a conference in Jerusalem.

Worshipers in Iran chant slogans during Friday prayers ceremony by a banner showing slain Iranian Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Soleimani, left, and Iraqi Shiite senior militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were killed in Iraq in a US drone attack on January 3, and a banner which reads in Persian: ‘Death To America,’ at Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran, January 17, 2020. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

In his interview Saturday,  Rezaei also said Iran was extensively monitoring US troops and shipping in the Middle East and could easily target them in a conflict.

“Naturally, we have precise information, thanks be to Allah. All the American bases are under our surveillance now. All the American aircraft carriers are under our control,” he said.

“We know the number of American ships in the Indian Ocean and the Sea of Oman, and where they are in the Persian Gulf, and what they have in Qatar and Bahrain, and [we know about] their activity in Iraq,” Rezaei said.

He said Iran even tracked individual US soldiers, and had information on hotels they stayed at, who their friends were and even “where they get their meat and food.”

“Our information is very precise. We bombed the Ayn Al-Assad base on the basis of detailed calculations. We knew that it was a very important site for the Americans that we had to strike,” he said.

The Pentagon said Monday that the number of US service members diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries has shot up to more than 100 as more troops suffer the aftereffects of the Iranian ballistic missile attack early last month in Iraq.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Air strikes killed 23 Syrian and foreign fighters in Syria Thursday, a monitor said.

Syria has said the attacks were carried out by Israel. There was no confirmation from Israel.

Israel has in recent years carried out multiple strikes targeting the Iranian military presence on its doorstep. It has pledged to prevent its main enemy from entrenching itself militarily in Syria, where Tehran is backing President Bashar Assad’s government alongside Russia and Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.

The pre-dawn raids killed three Iranians and seven Tehran-backed foreign fighters near Kisweh south of the capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Eight Syrian air defense forces also lost their lives in both Mezzeh and Jisr Baghdad, west of the capital, the Britain-based war monitor said.

Five Syrian members of a pro-Iran group were killed in the Ezra area in the southern province of Daraa.

A Syrian army source quoted by state news agency SANA said air defenses responded to two waves of Israeli strikes after midnight that targeted the Damascus area and then positions in Daraa and the adjacent province of Quneitra.

“The attack wounded eight fighters,” the source said, without elaborating on where they had been stationed or their nationality.

He said the raids were carried out from the airspace above the Golan Heights and southern Lebanon.

Loud explosions

AFP correspondents in Damascus heard loud explosions around 1:15 a.m.

State television broadcast images showing explosions in the sky.

An Israeli army spokesman declined to comment on the strikes when contacted by AFP.

Illustrative photo of Syrian soldiers preparing an anti-aircraft gun. (AP/File)

Israel has carried out repeated strikes in Syria since the civil war erupted in 2011, mainly targeting government forces and their Iranian and Hezbollah allies.

Israel’s political leadership has spoken publicly of the bombing campaign, although the army rarely comments on individual strikes.

Last month, Damascus accused the Israeli air force of carrying out an attack on the T4 airbase in central Syria, which the Observatory said killed at least three Iran-backed militiamen.

In December, the Observatory said Israeli air strikes killed three foreigners fighting alongside government forces south of the capital.

The previous month, the Israeli army claimed responsibility for a wave of air strikes against Syrian military sites and Iranian forces that killed 23 people including 16 foreigners.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said positions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, were among the targets.

Illustrative. An explosion reportedly caused by an Israeli strike is seen at the Mazzeh military base near Damascus, Syria, on September 2, 2018. (Screen capture: Twitter)

‘Will not save’ Idlib

The war in Syria has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of pro-democracy protests.

The reported Israeli strikes come as government forces press a blistering offensive against Syria’s last major rebel bastion, in the Idlib region in the northwest.

The Syrian army source said the strikes would not deter government forces from retaking the region, which is dominated by jihadists of Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate.

“This escalation will not save the armed terrorist groups that are collapsing in Idlib and western Aleppo under the strikes of the Syrian Arab Army,” the source said.

The bombardment has killed around 300 civilians since mid-December, the Observatory says.

The violence has seen more than 500,000 civilians flee their homes over the past two months, the United Nations says.

Twelve pro-Iranian fighters were killed in strikes against several targets near Damascus in the predawn hours of Thursday morning, which Syrian state media blamed on Israel, according to a Britain-based monitoring group.

Syrian state news agency SANA claimed the country’s air defenses downed a number of missiles during the strikes. Defense analysts routinely dismiss such claims by the Syrian regime as empty boasts.

“Our air defenses confronted an Israeli attack” west of the capital, said state news agency SANA, adding that the attack was carried out from airspace in the Israeli Golan Heights.

AFP correspondents in several districts of Damascus heard loud explosions around 1:15 a.m.

State television broadcast images showing explosions in the sky as Syrian anti-aircraft missiles detonated in the air.

According to SANA, the Israeli strikes targeted the al-Kiswah district — an area outside of Damascus that Israel has acknowledged striking in the past due to its use as an Iranian base of operations — as well as Marj al-Sultan and Jisr Baghdad.

In total, at least three government and Iranian positions near Damascus and west of the capital were targeted, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which said a fire broke out in one of the areas.

IDF Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman said he was aware of the “foreign reports” about airstrikes in Syria but declined to comment on the matter in accordance with longstanding Israeli policy.

Israel has long maintained that it would not tolerate efforts by Iran — a major ally of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad — to establish a permanent military presence in Syria and would take steps to thwart such entrenchment. Israel accuses Iran of seeking to set up a military presence in Syria that could be used as a launchpad for attacks against the Jewish state. Jerusalem has also vowed to retaliate for any attacks on Israel from Syria.

Though Israeli officials generally refrain from taking responsibility for specific strikes in Syria, they have acknowledged conducting hundreds to thousands of raids in the country since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

These have overwhelmingly been against Iran and its proxies, notably the Lebanese Hezbollah group, but the IDF has also carried out strikes on Syrian air defenses when those batteries have fired at Israeli jets. In recent months, the IDF has also confirmed conducting operations in Iraq against Iranian entrenchment efforts there as well.

The reported strikes in the early hours of Thursday morning came just over a month after the killing of Iranian Quds Force head Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike earlier this month.

Protesters demonstrate over the US airstrike in Iraq that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in Tehran, Iran, January 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Soleimani was seen as the architect of Iran’s project to carve out a foothold in Syria, which Israel sees as a threat and has vowed to stymie.

An IDF Military Intelligence assessment handed to the government last month said the removal of Soleimani could give Israel an opportunity to curb or halt Iran entrenchment in Syria and elsewhere.

Shortly after this assessment was released, Damascus accused the Israeli Air Force of carrying out an attack on the T-4 military airport in central Syria near Homs. The base has long believed to be used by Iranian forces and allied Shiite militias and has been targeted by Israeli airstrikes in the past.

According to the SOHR, the strike on January 14 targeted a weapons storehouse, as well as a building that was under construction and two military vehicles on the T-4 air base, killing three pro-Iranian fighters.

Last November, four rockets were fired at northern Israel from Syria, all of which were shot down by the Iron Dome missile defense system. In response, the Israeli army conducted a series of air strikes against Iranian forces and government military sites, killing several pro-Iranian fighters.

AFP contributed to this report.

The White House in December hosted a secret meeting last December with officials from Israel, the US and the United Arab Emirates to discuss countering Iranian influence in the Middle East.

The officials discussed better coordinating their positions against Iran, and the possibility of advancing a non-aggression pact between Israel and the UAE, which could mark a possible step toward normalizing relations between the countries.

Attending the December 17 meeting were Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, and the Emirati ambassador to the US Yousef al-Otaiba, who is considered close to the UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahayan.

The US special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, and Deputy National Security Adviser Victoria Coates also attended.

Israel’s Channel 13 and the US news site Axios first reported the meeting on Tuesday, citing senior Israeli and American officials as sources.

Meir Ben-Shabbat, the head of the National Security Council, speaks at a trilateral meeting in Jerusalem of the Israeli, US and Russian national security advisers on June 25, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

The reports said that the meeting spurred a tweet several days later by the Emirati foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan apparently in support of warming Israel-UAE ties.

Al Nahyan, the UAE’s top diplomat, tweeted a link to an article titled “Islam’s reformation: an Arab-Israeli alliance is taking shape in the Middle East.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded, writing “I welcome the closer relations between Israel and many Arab states. The time has come for normalization and peace.”

Jerusalem is said to have developed clandestine ties with numerous Arab countries in recent years over the countries’ shared antipathy toward Iran and the need to counter jihadism.

Israeli officials have also openly visited several such countries recently. In October 2018, Netanyahu was welcomed to Oman by the country’s then-ruler Sultan Qaboos bin Said. That same month Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev traveled to Abu Dhabi for the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam judo tournament, where Israel’s national anthem was played for the first time in the Arabian peninsula following Israeli judoka Sagi Muki’s first place win.

i

Israel has also been invited to participate at the Expo 2020 in the UAE city of Dubai.

In June, Bahrain’s foreign minister told the Times of Israel his country wished for peace with the Jewish state.

In October, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he was advancing non-aggression treaties with several Arab nations in the Gulf, a “historic” démarche he said that could end the conflict between Jerusalem and those states.

Arab leaders, however, have also indicated that true normalization can not take place so long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not resolved.

The UAE ambassador to Washington, along with envoys from Bahrain and Oman, attended the January 28 unveiling of the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal in a tacit sign of support for the US initiative.

The UAE issued the most complimentary statement on the plan of any Arab state, calling it “a serious initiative” and stating that it “offers an important starting point for a return to negotiations within a US-led international framework.”

The UAE also signed on to an Arab League rejection of the plan, however.

Arab countries in the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, view Iran as a major regional foe and strongly oppose its support for armed groups throughout the Middle East.

A senior US official on Saturday lambasted the Arab League’s rejection of the recently released Trump peace plan, saying in a statement that such dismissals would not benefit the Palestinian people.

“It is only by having a wiliness [sic] to try a new approach that we will make a breakthrough in a conflict that has left the Palestinian people to suffer for decades,” a senior administration official said in a written statement.

“Past Arab League resolutions have placated Palestinian leadership and not led to peace or progress and it is important to try a new approach or the Palestinian people’s fate will not change.” the official added.

The comments from Washington came after the Arab League voted during an emergency meeting in Cairo to unanimously rejected US President Donald Trump’s controversial Middle East plan, calling it “unfair” to Palestinians.

This picture taken on February 1, 2020 shows a view at an Arab League emergency meeting discussing the US-brokered proposal for a settlement of the Middle East conflict, at the league headquarters in the Egyptian capital Cairo, as delegates take to their seats (Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)

The official attempted to highlight “positive remarks” from some Arab foreign ministers who did not dismiss the peace plan out of hand in speeches before the unanimous vote to totally reject the proposal.

“It is important … to come out with a constructive stance, a realistic stance and a positive strategy that goes beyond just condemnation,” UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said, according to Riyadh-based Arab News.

Nonetheless, the Arab League, a pan-Arab bloc of 22 countries, said in its statement Saturday that it “rejects the US-Israeli ‘deal of the century’ considering that it does not meet the minimum rights and aspirations of Palestinian people.”

Arab leaders also vowed “not to… cooperate with the US administration to implement this plan.”

The League warned that Israel must not act on the plan unilaterally — a reference to Israel’s stated intention to move on annexation as soon as possible.

The US proposal would grant the Palestinians a state with restricted sovereignty in Gaza and in parts of the West Bank, while allowing Israel to annex all its settlements and keep nearly all of East Jerusalem.

The Palestinians would control scattered chunks of the West Bank and some neighborhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem, all linked together by a new network of roads, bridges and tunnels. Israel would control the state’s borders and airspace and maintain overall security authority. Critics of the plan say this would rob Palestinian statehood of any meaning.

Immediately after, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to bring the issue for a vote in the cabinet on Sunday, but has since backtracked after the US administration indicated that while it does not oppose annexation, it was not ready to see it happen until at least after the coming Israeli elections on March 2.

After initial mixed messages, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner clarified on Thursday that the US would not approve of Israeli annexation efforts before the March election.

Reports on major Israeli television networks Saturday said CIA Director Gina Haspel had secretly visited Ramallah in recent days and met with Palestinian officials.

Channel 12 news reported that Haspel assured them Washington would seek to prevent Israel from annexing West Bank land before the March 2 election, as Netanyahu has indicated he would like to do.

CIA Director Gina Haspel testifies at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on “Worldwide Threats” on January 29, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images/AFP)

According to Kan TV, Palestinian officials told Haspel they would not cut security ties with US agencies. The network also reported that Haspel met with Israeli officials during her visit but did not provide further details.

There was no official confirmation of Haspel’s visit from Israel, the US or the PA.

Channel 13 on Saturday reported White House officials were surprised by the unanimous rejection of the plan by the Arab League, as several Arab nations had initially voiced cautious support for the proposal.

Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Araba, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt and Morocco all issued statements following the release of the plan calling it a welcoming step. But on Saturday all backed the Arab League rejection.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas holds a placard showing maps of (L to R) “historical Palestine,” the 1947 United Nations partition plan on Palestine, the 1948-1967 borders between the Palestinian territories and Israel, and a current map of the Palestinian territories without Israeli-controlled areas and settlements, during an Arab League emergency meeting discussing US President Donald Trump’s peace proposal, at the league headquarters in the Egyptian capital Cairo on February 1, 2020. (Khaled Desouki/AFP)

An unnamed Arab diplomat told the Haaretz daily that the US had not fully briefed envoys from Bahrain, the UAE and Oman on the details of the plan before they agreed to attend its unveiling ceremony on Tuesday.

The disappointment with the details of the plan led the three countries to join the other Arab League member states in voting Saturday to reject the plan, he said.

The proposal unveiled Tuesday by US President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday recognizes Israel’s rights to the Jordan Valley, all West Bank settlements and their surroundings — some 30% of the West Bank in total.

US President Donald Trump, left, listens as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, speaks during an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, January 28, 2020, to announce the Trump administration’s much-anticipated plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Channel 12 reported Saturday that Washington wants Israel to accept the plan in its entirety before it goes ahead with any annexation push — a possibly difficult request, given much of the Israeli right’s refusal to accept the notion of a Palestinian state, no matter how small and non-contiguous it might be.

Nonetheless, the network reported that Netanyahu is planning on bringing the plan before the cabinet soon for a symbolic vote. The measure would be strictly declarative in nature, but Netanyahu is hoping to use the government’s approval to convince Washington to green-light a measure of limited annexation in the West Bank before the election.

On Friday the network reported that Netanyahu is eager to secure backing for a symbolic “mini annexation” in the coming days to appease his right-wing voters after his plans to quickly annex the Jordan Valley and West Bank Jewish settlements were stymied by US opposition.