Yesterday we reported how an Israeli helicopter strike just over the Syrian Golan border killed several senior Hezbollah terrorist leaders, including Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of legendary and assassiated Hezbollah terror coordinatior Imad Mughniyeh. The elder Mughniyeh was responsible, among other things, for the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut that killed hundreds of Americans.
A total of six senior Hezbollah military leaders were killed:
A Hezbollah leader even more important than Jihad Mughniyeh also was killed in the attack:
Jihad does not appear to have been a key Hezbollah figure in the attack, however. One of the more central Hezbollah figures killed is Mohammad Ahmad Issa, who Raja News identified as an intelligence official, though other news agencies reported he was a top commander for Iraq and Syria.
In Beirut, Hezbollah is mourning its dead.
Following high-level Israeli infiltrations of Hezbollah’s inner circle, Hezbollah must be wondering how the Israelis knew such senior leaders would gather in one spot at that particular time in an area so close to Israel’s border. That it was in Syria puts Hezbollah in a difficult political position, because it cannot justify dragging all of Lebanon into war for an attack that took place outside Lebanon’s border in a conflict in which Hezbollah is defending Syria and Iran.
The Hezbollah leaders killed led the news, but may not be the reason for the attack.
Iran has confirmed what was reported yesterday, that a key Iranian General, Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, in charge of coordinating Hezbollah and the Assad regime’s joint military efforts also was in the convoy and was killed. Al-Jazeera reports:
Iran has confirmed that a general of its elite Revolutionary Guards has died in an Israeli strike on Syria that also killed six members of the Lebanese group Hezbollah.”General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi and a number of fighters and Islamic Resistance [Hezbollah] forces were attacked by the Zionist regime’s helicopters,” said a statement on the Guards’ website on Monday.”This brave general and some members of Hezbollah were martyred,” it said, adding that Allahdadi was in Syria “as an adviser helping the Syrian government to confront takfiri Salafist [Sunni extremist] terrorists.”
This video released by Syrian rebels purports to show the aftermath of the attack:
Why was an Iranian General so close to the Israeli border, accompanied by very senior Hezbollah leaders?
It’s part of the goal of Iran and Hezbollah to get to the other side of the border, literally.
The Jerusalem Post reports:
Western intelligence sources reported Sunday that Jihad Mughniyeh, along with nine others, headed a large-scale terrorist cell that enjoyed direct Iranian sponsorship and a direct link to Hezbollah. The cell had targeted Israel in the past, launching attacks on the Golan Heights.Mughniyeh, the son of the late Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh, was believed to have been in the planning stages of more deadly terror attacks against Israel in the Golan Heights, which would have included rockets, cross-border infiltrations, border bombings and anti-tank fire. The attacks were designed to kill IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians who live in the Golan, the sources said.
Iran is a key part of this, including bravado showing it is at Israel’s border.
In late December, social media accounts associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards posted photos of Iranian soldiers at Israel’s Lebanon border, as Al-Arabiya reported:
Recently-released pictures on social media appear to show Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards on the border between Israel and Lebanon.Earlier this month, an Iranian blog released similar photos, claiming that they were taken in southern Lebanon in late October.The blog was titled “We are arriving… near the Mother of Corruption, the accursed Israel; soon we will pass over their bodies, Allah willing,” according to MEMRI, a U.S.-based site that translates Arabic and Persian media reports, in addition to several other languages.
So why did the Iranian General approach Israel’s Syrian border?
To get to the other side. Eventually.
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