Following reports of an aerial assault targeting a Syrian military position in the eastern part of the war-torn-country, which Syrian military sources attributed to the United States coalition; A U.S. official alleged that it was Israel that had conducted the air strikes near the Syrian-Iraqi border, rejecting any American involvement. A Syrian army commander revealed, following the attack, that drones had bombed positions of Iraqi factions along Syria’s eastern border-region, referring to the Iraqi Mobilization Forces fighting along Assad’s army – a Shi’ite militia alliance that operates under the directives of the Quds Force, the elite-arm of Iran’s revolutionary guards. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, some 40 militants were killed as a result of the attack.
While TV7 was unable to confirm the American official’s allegation of Israel’s responsibility, a statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day earlier, in which he reiterated Jerusalem’s resolve to thwart Iran’s military entrenchment in Israel’s northern neighbor – “not only adjacent to the border with the Jewish state, but across all of the war-torn-country,” may have been a signal to both Tehran and Damascus that Jerusalem’s reach is indeed beyond the 40 kilometers asserted as an Israeli red-line. It is important that the strike attributed to Israel would boost the country’s deterrence, considering the fact that the location of the air strikes is a long-distance from Israel, forcing an Israeli aircraft to overcome significant logistical obstacles to reach its target undetected.