Thursday, May 10, 2018

SYRIA UPDATE: MISSILES LAUNCHED AMID CONFLICTING CLAIMS,  IS REGIME CHANGE NEXT?


"After spending 10 hours in the company of President Vladimir Putin in Moscow at his guest of honor, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he believes that Israel's freedom to operate in Syria in its defense is not in jeopardy...."


Debkafile report May 9th, 2018 at 1:42 pm Eastern time


"Some of the missiles Israel launched into Syrian territory have broken through the defenses deployed by Damascus and hit radar and air defense positions, state media outlet SANA said, citing a military source.......

The Israeli army said it was attacking "Iranian targets" inside Syria..."


Russia Today Report May 10th, 2018


"Israel claimed that it will respond against Iran, but hit positions of the SAA (Syrian Arab Army) only......"


"WithinSyriaBlog" post May 10th, 2018


"Israel will 'eliminate' Syrian President Bashar Assad if he continues to let Iran operate from Syria, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said Monday.....Steinitz told Israeli news site ynet that Assad needs to know it will be his end if he allows Iran to turn Syria into military base in order to attack Israel.....Steinitz later clarified his comments reflect his personal opinions."


Haaretz story May 8th, 2018


When the missiles began to fly in the Golan Heights late last night it came as no surprise with President Trump's announcement of withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal following days of reports, first from Israel, then US sources that there was an "imminent" Iranian threat from Syria.

In the last several weeks Israeli raids were launched into Syria with no response from either the Iranians or the Syrians aimed at Israeli controlled territory.

There were claims that Israel fired first last night from Syria but Israel says Iranian forces fired at their positions in the Golan first.

Soon missiles were flying in other parts of Syria with Israel claiming to have hit 50 Iranian targets in what was a major Israeli operation.

Syrian defenses were hit according to Syrian government media with pro-Syrian sources online saying only Syrian targets were hit, not Iranian ones.

Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's trip to Moscow Wednesday May 9th to be "guest of honor" at the World War 2 victory parade gave him an opportunity to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Israeli leader came away confident that Russia would not interfere with Israeli military action.

But while Israel insists Iran is its target, one wonders whether the comments made earlier this week (which were later walked back) by Israel's energy minister Yuval Steinitz stating that Israel would 'eliminate' Syria's ruler Bashar Assad if he continues to host Iranian bases  is the real end game for Israel in Syria.

Will Israel seek to do what its Saudi allies and their Al-Qaeda jihadists were unable to do, remove Assad from power in Syria?

Russia is apparently urging restraint from Syria for now in response to Israeli attacks so as to not fall into a trap of justifying even harsher attacks from Israel.

Russia among other things would like to successfully host the World Cup of soccer (football) starting next month but we shall see if there is more escalation in Syria in the hours and days ahead.

You might recall when Russia hosted the Winter Olympics in 2014 at Sochi, the pro-Russian government was overthrown in Ukraine.  That forced Russia to retake Crimea from the new anti-Russian government.   Ex-Israel Defense Forces were among those helping the anti-Russian coup in Ukraine.

Links below......(ADDED 5th link later on with 2014 post about ex-IDF in Ukraine 2014)












Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)