Seven ISIS terrorists were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday just a couple of hundred meters away from the Israeli border on the Syrian-held Golan Heights, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The terrorists came as close to 200 meters to the Israel-Syria frontier — situated between the Alpha line and the border — when they were attacked and killed by the IAF at 10:30 pm. The army said no infiltration into Israeli territory took place, and elite IDF troops found seven bodies with grenades, Kalashnikov rifles, and suicide vests, among other items.
— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) August 2, 2018
The army confirmed that it had monitored the ISIS cell for a while and was on high alert and ready to protect residents of northern Israel, as fighting in the border region between Syrian regime forces and opposition groups continue.
“The Assad regime is responsible for everything that occurs in Syrian territory, and anything that is carried out against Israel,” the army observed.
Following the Israeli strike against armed terrorists on the Syrian border, TIP spoke with former head of the Counterterror Bureau at the Prime Minister’s Office, Brig. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Nuriel.
“Regarding the border between Israel and Syria we are intent to make sure that that the cease-fire agreement from ’74 will stay and nobody will change it,” Nuriel clarified.
Israeli and Syrian officials have indirectly met several times on the Golan Heights via intermediaries from the United Nations at the request of Russia to discuss the return of Syrian regime forces to the area.
“When the Syrian forces with all their supporters are trying to capture the areas close to the borders we can expect more mistakes and more friction with us,” Nuriel said, adding “Again, we told them very loud and clear, through the Russians and directly by UNDOF and others. Don’t change the rules… we will not let anyone, the Syrians, as well as ISIS, Hezbollah as well as the Iranians [breach the cease-fire area].”
According to Israeli intelligence estimates there are thousands of Iranian advisers and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officers in Syria, in addition to 7,000 Hezbollah fighters and other Iranian-backed Shiite groups from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Nuriel noted further that “Too many participants will try to use that border in order to attack us, and therefore the Israeli policy or the Israeli attempt should be, we need to be prepared, we need to be along the Golan (…) with all the capabilities, because maybe the Syrian regime basically, in the beginning, meaning from now and a year from now, they will not be able to control those trying to attack the State of Israel from that border.”
The former counterterror chief said, however, that he does not expect ISIS to launch a direct attack against Israel. “I believe that in the next stage ISIS will not open another front against us,” Nuriel said. “They have too many problems with the Syrian others – and I believe they will not take any actions, and after that [incident] they will think twice before getting into that grey area,” he concluded.
[Photo: IDFSpokesperson / Twitter ]