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Pompeo’s
thumbs up for Israel to counter Russian-backed Iranian drive in Syria
29
April, 2018
As
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu sat down on Sunday, April 29 in Tel Aviv to discuss the
Iranian threat, a Russian-backed Syrian force struck across the
Euphrates to capture a string of US-backed fortified Kurdish SDF
villages. This incursion of a key US area of influence region in
eastern Syria, if confirmed, would rip up a key element of the
US-Russian de-confliction zones accord and provide Iran with a
springboard for a leap up to the Iraqi border.
Pompeo,
on his first Middle East Trip as Secretary of State, reiterated in
Tel Aviv – as he did in Riyadh earlier Sunday – that the nuclear
deal will need to be fixed or it would be abandoned by President
Donald Trump’s on May 12. Standing alongside Netanyahu, the
secretary backed Israeli efforts to counter Iran in Syria. He said
the US is committed to “rolling back to the full range of Iranian
malign influence in Syria,” specifically mentioning “Iran’s
missile systems, its support for Hezbollah, its importation of
thousands of Shiite fighters into Syria.” Pompeo added, “We
strongly support Israel’s sovereign right to defend itself.”
DEBKAfile:
This was taken as a US green light for Israel to take on the elements
threatening its security from Syria. The secretary also stressed that
the US would continue to fight ISIS and not tolerate the Assad regime
using chemical weapons.
Our
military sources add: If the Syrian push into the US-held region is
confirmed, it will tell the Trump administration and its new
secretary of state that while they were busy arranging for US troops
to leave Syria, Moscow was expanding its support for Iran to move in
and deepen presence in that country.
Russia,
Iran and Syria were not deterred when their attempt last year to
cross the Euphrates was repulsed by the US contingent with heavy
casualties inflicted on Russian forces. The same coalition tried
again on February 10 and were again thrown back by the US air force.
But our military sources report that, on April 13-14, shortly before
the US-UK-French missile strike on Syria’s chemical weapons sites,
Russian forces were seen transferring to the Syrian army upgraded
bridging equipment for their new attempt on Sunday. A few hours after
the Syrian army’s claims of success, however, Kurdish troops said
they had mounted a counter-offensive and forced the Syrian forces
“far away” from the territories they captured.
Pompeo
winds up his three-day Middle East tour in Amman before returning
home to Washington.
A
Syrian cargo flight from the Iranian capital Tehran landed at a
military airport in the city of Hama in northern Syria on Sunday,
less than twenty-four hours before a series of explosions rocked a
nearby army base late Sunday night, which state media blamed on a
missile attack.
Data from flight tracking website Flightradar24 shows
the Syrian Air Ilyushin Il-76T landed in Hama just past midnight on
Sunday, after taking off from Mehrabad Airport,
Tehran's dual
military and civilian airport.The same aircraft, capable of carrying
around 40 tons of cargo, made a similar flight from Tehran to Hama on
April 22, according to the data, and another to a location near
Aleppo earlier on the same day.
Between January and April, the
aircraft flew almost exclusively on the main cargo route between
Tehran and Damascus.
In recent weeks Israeli and US officials have
drawn renewed attention between the copious cargo flights between the
two countries and suspicions that they are carrying weapons bound for
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's regime and Hezbollah, the
Iran-backed Shiite militia.
Iran and Hezbollah have backed Assad in
the country's seven-years-long civil war.
Opposition sources in Syria
said the explosions in Hama occurred at a military base widely known
to house and be a recruiting center for Shiite militias and home to
Iranian personnel, although this is yet to be confirmed.
Syrian
state television and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a
missile attack was to blame, but did not identify the source or
precise targets.
Earlier this month an Israeli security source noted
that the flights are being watched, and on Thursday US Secretary of
Defense James Mattis said he agreed that Iran has upped weapons
shipments to Syria with the aim of preparing an attack on
Israel.
Asked by a reporter if he agrees that "weapons shipments
from Iran to Syria are for the purpose of striking Israel?"
Mattis replied: "I can't think of any other purpose for them
right now."On Wednesday, CNN reported that US intelligence
agencies are also worried about what exactly Iran is stuffing into
the bellies of the jets.
The officials said they were alarmed by an
uptick in flights since an alleged Israeli strike on an Iranian air
base in Syria on April 8.Iran has repeatedly vowed to exact revenge
for the air attack, which reportedly targeted Iranian military drones
but also killed several military personnel.
While the air bridge
between Iran and Syria dates back to the earliest years of the
conflict, the flights are gaining more attention as Israel seeks to
curb what is describes as Iran's growing military presence in the
war-torn country.
Flight tracking data reviewed by i24NEWS shows that
several airlines form the pillars of the airlift, which some analysts
say are front companies for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC), the vanguard of Tehran’s deployment in Syria.
Syrian Air,
formally known as Syrian Arab Airlines, is sanctioned by the United
States and the European Union.
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