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Israel has renewed its strikes on the Syrian coast amid rumors of a near uprising against the Islamist government appointed by the terrorist-designated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham after the fall of the Assad regime.
The Syrian coast, where the Russian military maintains a naval base in the port of Tartus and an air base in Khmeimim near the town of Jableh, is the heartland of the Alawites, Syria’s largest minority. Fromer president Bashar al-Assad was a member of the religious group.
Since the fall of the regime, the new government has been accused of persecuting the Alawites with crimes and violations being reported daily by local monitors.
Late on March 3, two waves of strikes hit the area of Qardaha in the countryside of Lattakia and the outskirts of the city of Tartus.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed responsibility for the strikes that the targeted Qardaha, revealing in a statement that the target was a military facility belonging to the former Syrian regime where weapons were being stored.
“Due to the latest developments in the area, it was decided to strike infrastructure at the site,” the military said, adding that it continues to monitor Syria for potential threats to Israel.
Last week, a series of protests broke out in Qardaha, the hometown of Assad, after security forces attempted to occupy a house in the city. At least three locals were killed near the town. Syrian authorities claimed that they were armed.
The strikes on Tartus outskirts hit an air defense base located close to the port. The IDF didn’t claim responsibility. However, locals living nearby reported receiving warning messages on their mobile phones from the military ahead of the strikes.
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“To our people on the coast, move away from the gatherings of the saboteurs IDF,” reads one of the messages.
Another message said: “what happened was the beginning … we will inform you of the safe areas in the coming days IDF.”
The language in both messages, including the use of the term “saboteurs,” is in line with the wording officially used by the IDF’s spokesmen unit.
While the strikes in Qardaha and Tartus caused no casualties, they did lead to rumors of a near Israeli operation on the Syrian coast.
Talks of an uprising on the coast by the Alawites against the Islamist government have been ongoing for a few weeks. Many members of the group were serving in the now dissolved Syrian Arab Army and affiliated security forces. Now, they find themselves chased by the government. Many other Alawites were also expelled from civilian jobs which left them without an income.
In addition to the rumors, a series of hit-and-run attacks targeted checkpoints across the coast, with some causing casualties.
The Syrian government have been taking the recent events very seriously. Reinforcements were deployed on the coast in recent days. Moreover, on March 2 key entrances to Tartus were completely blocked restricting the movement from and to the city. This led to tensions with the locals.
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It’s worth noting that Israel last week vowed to defend the Druze minority in southern Syria and was close to launch a military operation against Syrian government forces after deadly clashes in a Druze-majority district in southern Damascus. In addition, Israel has repeated voiced its support of Kurdish forces controlling northeastern Syria.
The situation on the Syrian coast is another example of how the radical policies of Syria’s new Islamist government are driving the country towards division, all while offering the chance to Israel to expand its influence.
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why don’t you give me a break for start? alawites are muslims, while those so called ‘islamists’ are not.
well pointed, exactly.
a secular state on the coast could be a reasonable compromise. if the rest of the country be devoured by zionists, turks, amers and their terrorist minions… at the very least there should be one safe space for normal people, christians, alawites, shiia, and non-terrorist sunnis. maybe even this coastal republic could be a staging ground for future liberation of syria though i honestly doubt it. but this could then again only work if russia supported this movement.
sorry mister hooknose. you can’t have your cake and eat it too. erdougan won’t allow syria to be broken up into sectarian fiefdoms, and that’s a promise.
the greater israel project thrives on tension . this is used to purvey propaganda into the innocents minds to gain public approval to create dystopia . a never ending continuum of true, semi-true and false flag media events will be incoming for years to come . dystopia expansion .
how israel creates, deploys and navigates the propaganda networks with hasbara statements and opinion article injections is a spectacle for all who might see.
why’s israel reportedly lobbying the us to keep russia’s bases in syria? by andrew korybko sharetweetpinmail reuters cited unnamed sources to report that israel is lobbying the us to keep russia’s bases in syria as part of a plan to counterbalance turkish influence there.
according to them, israel fears that hamas might relocate to syria and then operate from there under turkish protection, which could drastically worsen israeli-turkish tensions. they didn’t explain how russia’s continued military presence in syria could avert that scenario, however, nor how the us could convince syria not to kick them out either.
nevertheless, the little that was revealed sheds light on what israel might have in mind, namely an informal trilateral arrangement centered on their shared interests in preventing turkiye from dominating post-assad syria. should they fail, then russia fears that turkiye could hold its bases there hostage as part of some geopolitical blackmail scheme; israel fears
hamas establishing itself there with turkish protection; and the us fears the preceding scenario leading to a serious crisis within its allied network.
the first step towards protecting their corresponding interests is to ensure that syria can rely on russia as an economic and military counterbalance to turkiye, which necessitates the us agreeing to let russia maintain its military presence there. the prerequisite is getting the us to understand russia’s crucial role in this respect, ergo the reported israeli lobbying, after which the us would then have to convey this to syria.
that could take the form of assuring it that sanctions relief isn’t conditional on kicking russia out. an unnamed high-ranking eu official told reporters in late january that
“we have already informed the new authorities in syria that the normalization process hinges on removing all manner of foreign presence, be it military or some other tentacles. three countries are present there, and russia is one of them. so yes, we keep pressing them on this matter.”
in spite of that, the eu just lifted some sanctions on energy, transport, and banking, thus suggesting that its position has unofficially changed since then.
this volte-face is either due to israeli lobbying and/or us pressure, the first of which would show that the eu is still doing regional favors for israel even after harshly criticizing its conduct in gaza while the second would show that the transatlantic rift over ukraine isn’t as serious as many thought.
after all, it’s a major concession on the eu’s part to lift some sanctions on syria even though russia still retains its two bases there that the bloc demanded be removed as a condition for this, hence the aforesaid speculation.
with this precedent in mind, it can be concluded that israel has already made progress on relieving external pressure upon syria to kick
russia out, whether by lobbying the eu and/or the us, the latter with regard to having possibly gotten it to convince the europeans about the importance of thisthe next step is to then ensure that the terms that syria requires from russia for keeping its bases aren’t so onerous as to (perhaps deliberately at turkiye’s behest) scuttle their talks on this issue.
it’s here where the spirit of the nascent russian–us “new détente” could see the us can explain to syria that it wouldn’t object to russia rebuilding some of its armed forces that israel destroyed late last year within certain limits and conveying that israel agrees to this as well. at the same time, the us can also convey that israel might destroy whatever equipment syria receives from turkiye
and could resume its years-long bombing campaign there against what it considers to be terrorists, in this case hamas.this carrot-and-stick approach might be sufficient for syria to agree to scale back whatever onerous demands it might make of russia in exchange for preserving its military presence, provided of course that the interim authorities are rational, though that can’t be taken for granted given their sordid pasts
should this second step succeed, then the final one would be for the us to advise syria on how to most effectively leverage its renewed strategic partnership with russia for counterbalancing turkiye.
apart from allowing it to rebuild the syrian armed forces within certain agreed-upon limits, this could take the form of offering russia more energy and reconstruction contracts to expand its existing presence in these spheres, which can be explained to turkiye on the basis that russia has more experience.
even if turkiye interprets this as a snub, its hands would be tied in terms of how to respond since any vindictive pressure upon syria could counterproductively push syria further away from it. through these means, russia, israel, and the us would advance their shared interests in preventing turkiye from dominating post-assad syria, which could then result in more trilateral cooperation on other issues such as convincing iran to reach a new nuclear deal with the us.
there’s even the possibility of expanding their trilateral to include their shared indian partner so as to form a quadrilateral for managing european, mideast, and asia-pacific affairs if the “new détente” leads to a new world order.
israel knows which way the wind is blowing and will therefore do whatever is needed to ensure that its interests are safeguarded by key players in the global systemic transition.
unilaterally advancing these same interests could entail enormous costs and risks such as if it feels compelled to bomb hamas militants sheltering in turkiye’s syrian bases should that worst-case scenario materialize. that’s why israel prefers to find common ground with russia and the us in order for them to help it with this.
while the russian-us interplay in syria is pivotal for protecting israel’s regional security interests, the india-middle east-europe economic corridor (imec) is pivotal for advancing israel’s economic interests. that megaproject was frozen after october 7th but israel hopes to soon revive it. the us also participates in imec while putin declared that “[imec] will only benefit us” so this
serves as yet another convergence of their interests with israel’s and could justify expanding their trilateral into a quadrilateral with india. for there to be any chance of that happening, the russian-us interplay in syria must first succeed in convincing that country’s interim authorities to maintain russia’s military presence there, after which it must effectively counterbalance turkiye with israeli-advised us guidance.
only then might their trilateral move towards other issues, dependent in large part on the “new détente” unfolding in parallel, and consider inviting india to join them in forming a “big four” that geopolitically reshapes eurasia. andrew korybko is an american moscow-based political analyst specializing in the….. he is a regular contributor to global research.
this is a journalist who views russia positively and fails to see that russia, along with israel, has been committed to the destruction of syria from the beginning.i know for sure that putin and netanyahu have been making moves on that political chessboard for years. unfortunately, bassel al-assad died because he would have exposed all the hypocrisy and criminality of khazaria-russia.