Reports: Israel Bolsters Syria Buffer Zone, Destroys Ousted Assad Regime’s Chemical Stockpiles
Also, Iran regime in meltdown over Assad’s collapse.
As Islamist-led forces consolidate their hold over Syria after the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime, Israel is reportedly carrying out military operations to secure and destroy chemical, biological, and other lethal arsenal scattered across the country.
The Israel Air Force hit around 300 targets since Assad fled the country to prevent the abandoned military arsenal from getting into the hands of terrorist organizations, the French news agency AFP reported Tuesday.
Israeli troops allegedly entered abandoned military bases near Damascus to secure the WMD and other lethal stockpiles, the Israeli media reported, citing Russian and Arab news outlets. “Reports in the Lebanese Mayadeen and Russian Sputnik news said that Israeli forces had entered Syrian military bases some 12 miles northeast of the capital, Damascus, and along the Qalamun Mountains that separate Lebanon from Syria,” the Israeli TV channel i24News wrote Monday.
Israel is targeting Syria non stop tonight:
This time, Israeli strikes targeted and destroyed the Seres Center, a facility dedicated to developing advanced weapons. pic.twitter.com/LeCEWCxwxR
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) December 9, 2024
The UK-based Sky News described an overnight Israeli airstrike:
Huge airstrikes lit up the horizon with orange explosions last night in northeastern Syria, says Middle East correspondent Ali Bunkall, in Qamishli.
Some 40 minutes of secondary explosions followed, as ammunition dumps were destroyed in what Syrian security sources say are Israeli strikes.
Israel claims it doesn’t want these weapons falling into the hands of extremist groups.
“Judging by the size of the explosions, they were probably rockets that were blowing up,” says Bunkall.
The BBC reported late night Monday that a “research centre with suspected links to chemical weapon production was among the sites hit,” citing Syrian sources.
#IDF airstrikes in #Syria have destroyed all MiG-29 squadrons of the former Syrian Air Force, multiple radars & weapons depots. Air defenses and naval ships at the Port of Latakia were also hit. #Israel aims to prevent these assets from falling into the wrong hands. #Assad #HTS pic.twitter.com/77WqKSWqOb
— War_Room_ME (@WarRoomME) December 9, 2024
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Monday night targeted the ousted regime’s chemical stockpiles and weapon storage facilities in the Mediterranean port city of Latakia.
“Reports in Syria claim that the Israeli Air Force bombed the Latakia port a short while ago,” The Times of Israel reported Monday night. “According to the reports, the strikes targeted Syrian naval assets belonging to the ousted Assad regime.”
“The strikes have hit advanced missile storage sites, air defense systems, weapon production facilities, and chemical weapons sites,” the news outlet added. “The strikes have also taken out planes, helicopters and tanks that belonged to the Assad regime army.”
🚨BREAKING🚨 IDF strikes in the port of Latakia, Syria. Now pic.twitter.com/yqrs9DBBCZ
— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) December 9, 2024
Israel bolsters buffer zone along Syria border
Israel was deploying infantry and armored vehicles to enforce a buffer zone aimed at securing the border with Syria following Assad’s falls.
The troops were “deployed in the buffer zone between Syria and the Golan Heights to prevent any infiltration at specific control points,” i24NEWS TV channel reported on Sunday.
The IDF’s “engineering, infantry, and armored forces” were “stationed along Israel’s border with Syria to secure the area,” the military disclosed Monday evening.
BREAKING:
First pictures of the Israel Army operating inside Syria.
The IDF has entered Syrian territory for the first time since the Yom Kippur War in 1973, establishing a forward buffer zone a few km into Syrian territory to counter threats from Islamist Syrian rebels
🇮🇱🇸🇾 pic.twitter.com/9qDmj7cfLc
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 10, 2024
Iran regime in meltdown over Assad’s collapse
The Iranian regime is in a meltdown over the spectacular fall of the client Syrian regime.
The top commanders of the Islamic Guard (IRGC), the Mullah regime’s military and foreign terrorist arm, were blaming each other for the disaster that wrecked Iran’s multi-billion ‘Axis of Resistance’ project created to encircle Israel and dominate the Arab Middle East, the British newspaper Telegraph reported Monday.
In the wake of the October 7 terror attack, Israel effectively dismantled Hamas, Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Hezbollah terrorist groups, all members of the Iranian axis. The falls of Assad severs Iran’s supply trail to these terrorist outfits and denies them a safe haven.
The UK-based Telegraph reports:
A furious blame game is unfolding among Iran’s armed forces over the fall of Bashar al-Assad, The Telegraph has learned.
Officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said commanders of the elite military force were blaming each other “in angry terms” for the collapse of Assad’s regime and the loss of Iranian influence in the region.
“The atmosphere is like something between almost punching each other, punching the walls, yelling at each other and kicking rubbish bins. They are blaming each other, and no one is taking responsibility,” one official from Tehran told The Telegraph.
“No one ever imagined seeing Assad fleeing, as the focus for 10 years had been only on keeping him in power. And it was not because we were in love with him, it was because we wanted to maintain proximity to Israel and Hezbollah.”
Iran spent billions of dollars propping up Assad’s regime after intervening in the Syrian civil war in the mid-2010s.
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Israel is doing what she should do while she can. Poor Iran is in meltdown….must feel like Democrats now. A fierce blame game among Iran’s military? Maybe instead of yelling at each other these guys could shoot each other..
Coludn’t happen to a “nicer” bunch of people.
Let them squabble. They’re already rattled that Trump has been reelected. This just makes it sweeter.
.
OSINTtechnical
@Osinttechnical
“Yesterday, Syrian forces loyal to Assad abandoned their uniforms, guns, boots, and went home.
Seen here, a Russian soldier wanders through piles of abandoned equipment at an SAA base.”
As that third tweet highlights, they also struck the port in Latakia, sinking at least several Syrian naval ships as they lay in port. Some reports have described the attack as sinking the ‘entire fleet’ while other reports claim it was ‘several ships.’ IDF announced the attack was carried out by naval assets firing ship-to-ship missiles, which I thought was an interesting choice by IDF, probably wanting to give the Israeli Navy some real-world experience.
It will be interesting to see what Israel decides to do if/when China throws a bunch of money at this new Syrian government to ‘lease’ those former Russian military bases, the naval shipyard Latakia and the nearby airbase. China has been building out their military bases across the African continent. If they want to move into the Med, this is going to be their best opportunity.
It has been found and stated multiple times that Assad never gassed his people.
Funny, the State Department (albeit the Biden State Department) disagrees with you.
https://www.state.gov/tenth-anniversary-of-the-ghouta-syria-chemical-weapons-attack/
So does Aljazeera (albeit it’s Aljazeera)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/21/people-foaming-at-the-mouth-10-years-since-chemical-attacks-in-ghouta
And the BBC
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43686157
PBS says no proof of Sarin gas use. But: definitely Chlorine gas
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-has-no-evidence-of-syrian-use-of-sarin-gas-mattis-says
Depends on the definition of “his people”!
Are those chemical weapons the “lovely parting gift” Saddam Hussein handed out to Syria before he hit the spiderhole?
Probably not, because chemical weapons don’t last forever in storage. After Gulf War II, our troops sorted through Hussein’s ammunition dumps and found many chemical weapons randomly mixed in with the conventional ammunition, to the point where no one could have found them quickly. Many of these were already in bad shape due to corrosion of the cases and decay of the contents.
So we don’t know whether there were other stockpiles that Hussein’s troops could quickly get together and ship to Syria, but if there were any, they’d be about 30 years old and useless. Assad had chemical weapons now because he prioritized making or buying new ones.
Israel is scrounging around in Syrian airbases northeast of Damascus? Dang, that’s pretty bold. I rather suspect they had a short conversation with the brand new rules about certain rules of engagement…
Looks like the only proxies Iran has are students at Columbia and Harvard.
An utterly and despicably feckless, emasculated, submissive and cowed western leadership under European, leftist dhimmis and American Dhimmi-crats, going back to Jimmy Carter, has enabled, empowered, deferred to, appeased and whitewashed Islamofascist terrorist groups and regimes since at least the 1979 Iranian revolution.
And, now, Biden is doing it again, promising to send obscene amounts of American taxpayers’ money to whatever flavor of Islamofascist terrorist ideology is now in control of Syria.
Let’s not forget the neocon role in backing various flavors of Islamic groups in not just Syria but across the Middle East. Without their steadfast political pressure much of the US support wouldn’t have been sustained across several generations of WH occupants of both political parties.
I think Judy Woodruff is reporting at PBS that Syria has just received a flesh wound.
“ Officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said commanders of the elite military force were blaming each other “in angry terms”
Hmmm, internal fighting amongst the IRGC or internal fighting amongst the DNC, which is more enjoyable?
To think that NONE of this would have happened with Hamas and October 7 🤔🫣😂