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https://www.rt.com/news/428305-assad-israel-strikes-threats/
RT Exclusive
Israel in panic over losing their ‘dear’ ISIS & Al-Nusra terrorists in Syria – Assad
Published time: 31 May, 2018 07:11 Edited time: 31 May, 2018 07:55
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FILE PHOTO: Missile fire is seen from Damascus © Omar Sanadiki © Reuters
Over the last couple of months, Israel has intensified its bombing of military infrastructure in Syria, arguing that the Iranian presence in the Arab Republic jeopardizes its own national security. However, Israel’s justification for its air strikes based on alleged Iranian assets is a “lie,” Assad told RT’s Murad Gazdiev in an exclusive interview.
Read more
Netanyahu vows to keep fighting Iran 'anywhere in Syria'
“We don’t have Iranian troops,” Assad said. “We always said that we have Iranian officers, but they work with our army, we don’t have [Iranian] troops.”
Some Israeli politicians have threatened to “liquidate” Assad and topple his government if Iran continues to operate in Syria and transfer weapons to the Lebanese Hezbollah. The Syrian president, however, has made it clear that he is not afraid of the threat.
“The Israelis have been assassinating, killing, occupying for decades now, for around seven decades, in this region, but usually they do all this without threatening. Now, why do they threaten in this way? This is panic, this is a kind of hysterical feeling because they are losing the ‘dear ones,’ the dear ones Al-Nusra and ISIS, that’s why Israel is panicking recently, and we understand their feeling,” Assad said.
Rejecting claims that Syria’s air defenses are practically useless against Israeli jets, the 52-year-old Syrian leader said the old Soviet weapons were capable of repelling numerous IAF strikes and the US-led bombardment in April, when the US, Britain, and France fired over 100 cruise missiles at Syria.
“Our air defense is much stronger than before, thanks to the Russian support and the recent attacks by the Israelis and by the Americans and British and French proved that we are in a better situation” than at the start of the civil war seven years ago, he said.
To protect the sovereignty of Syria, Assad vowed to “improve our air defense, this is the only thing we can do, and we are doing that.”
READ MORE: Israeli military on' high alert', reservists and bomb shelters primed over Iran activity in Syria
Assad also said that crippling Syria’s air defenses was one of the original tactics used by the “mercenaries” at the beginning of the conflict, and that it was never designed to aid the “peaceful demonstrators,” but would certainly help in case of a foreign military intervention to depose the government.
“So, they attacked those bases, and they destroyed a big part of our air defenses,” he said, arguing that Israel continues to take advantage of that to this day. “This is the other proof that Israel was in direct link with those terrorists in Syria.”
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https://www.rt.com/news/448818-israel-arming-rebels-admission/
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After years of speculation, IDF chief admits Israel supplied Syrian rebels with weapons
Published time: 15 Jan, 2019 01:37
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Israeli army drill in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, August 7, 2018. © REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Gadi Eisenkot, who was the Israeli Defense Forces’ Chief of Staff for the last three years, told the Sunday Times in a farewell interview that Israel had been directly involved in the Syrian conflict on the side of the Syrian rebels, something that Tel Aviv has been reluctant to acknowledge before.
Also on rt.com Israel in panic over losing their ‘dear’ ISIS & Al-Nusra terrorists in Syria – Assad
The general, who is retiring from military service, said that Israel supplied rebels at the border with light weapons for the purposes of “self-defense.”
While the direct links between Syrian rebels and Israeli commanders have been officially revealed for the first time, rumors of close military ties between the armed militants and the Israeli government have been circulating for years.
Foreign Policy magazine reported in September that Israel supplied weapons and gave money to at least 12 rebel groups holed up in southern Syria. The arrangement reportedly included Israeli officials also giving $75-per-person monthly allowances to rebel fighters, in addition to the funds their leaders received to procure weapons on the black market
In return, rebels were expected to deter Hezbollah and Iran proxies from the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan Heights.
The scheme was reportedly in effect throughout Operation Good Neighbor, which officially kicked off in June 2016 and was wrapped up only last November. Within this undertaking, Israel was openly assisting the rebels but claimed that assistance was strictly humanitarian. Israel treated wounded Syrian rebels and their families in its hospitals, provided some 1,524 tons of food, 250 tons of clothes, 947,520 liters of fuel, as well as a huge amount of medical supplies.
Read more
Israeli defense minister met with Syrian rebels, former IDF commander reveals in a first
However, until recently Israel kept vigorously denying any involvement beyond that. The Jerusalem Post's report in September on the IDF confirming that it had provided light weapons to Syrian rebels was promptly pulled from its website. The newspaper told RT at the time that it was forced to remove the article by the army's censor, apparently, “for security reasons.”
In November, Maj. Gen. Gershon Hacohen, a former senior commander with the IDF, revealed that former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon had personally met with a group of Syrian rebels, without specifying the time period. Ya'alon was Israel's chief of defense from 2013 to May 2016.
The Israeli military seems to have finally begun to reveal the scope of its involvement in the Syrian conflict, previously shrouded in secrecy. In an interview with the New York Times, Eisenkot acknowledged that Israel has been waging a large-scale bombing campaign aimed at degrading Iran's military influence in the region. In 2018 alone, the IDF dropped 2,000 bombs on alleged Iran-linked targets in Syria. Sorties into the neighboring country's territory became“near-daily events” after PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s government greenlighted the expansion of the operation in January 2017, according to the retiring general.
If you like this story, share it with a friend!
RT Exclusive
Israel in panic over losing their ‘dear’ ISIS & Al-Nusra terrorists in Syria – Assad
Published time: 31 May, 2018 07:11 Edited time: 31 May, 2018 07:55
Get short URL
FILE PHOTO: Missile fire is seen from Damascus © Omar Sanadiki © Reuters
- 10271
- 62
Over the last couple of months, Israel has intensified its bombing of military infrastructure in Syria, arguing that the Iranian presence in the Arab Republic jeopardizes its own national security. However, Israel’s justification for its air strikes based on alleged Iranian assets is a “lie,” Assad told RT’s Murad Gazdiev in an exclusive interview.
Read more
Netanyahu vows to keep fighting Iran 'anywhere in Syria' “We don’t have Iranian troops,” Assad said. “We always said that we have Iranian officers, but they work with our army, we don’t have [Iranian] troops.”
Some Israeli politicians have threatened to “liquidate” Assad and topple his government if Iran continues to operate in Syria and transfer weapons to the Lebanese Hezbollah. The Syrian president, however, has made it clear that he is not afraid of the threat.
“The Israelis have been assassinating, killing, occupying for decades now, for around seven decades, in this region, but usually they do all this without threatening. Now, why do they threaten in this way? This is panic, this is a kind of hysterical feeling because they are losing the ‘dear ones,’ the dear ones Al-Nusra and ISIS, that’s why Israel is panicking recently, and we understand their feeling,” Assad said.
Rejecting claims that Syria’s air defenses are practically useless against Israeli jets, the 52-year-old Syrian leader said the old Soviet weapons were capable of repelling numerous IAF strikes and the US-led bombardment in April, when the US, Britain, and France fired over 100 cruise missiles at Syria.
“Our air defense is much stronger than before, thanks to the Russian support and the recent attacks by the Israelis and by the Americans and British and French proved that we are in a better situation” than at the start of the civil war seven years ago, he said.
To protect the sovereignty of Syria, Assad vowed to “improve our air defense, this is the only thing we can do, and we are doing that.”
READ MORE: Israeli military on' high alert', reservists and bomb shelters primed over Iran activity in Syria
Assad also said that crippling Syria’s air defenses was one of the original tactics used by the “mercenaries” at the beginning of the conflict, and that it was never designed to aid the “peaceful demonstrators,” but would certainly help in case of a foreign military intervention to depose the government.
“So, they attacked those bases, and they destroyed a big part of our air defenses,” he said, arguing that Israel continues to take advantage of that to this day. “This is the other proof that Israel was in direct link with those terrorists in Syria.”
If you like this story, share it with a friend!
https://www.rt.com/news/448818-israel-arming-rebels-admission/
HomeWorld News
After years of speculation, IDF chief admits Israel supplied Syrian rebels with weapons
Published time: 15 Jan, 2019 01:37
Get short URL
Israeli army drill in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, August 7, 2018. © REUTERS/Amir Cohen
- 3201
- 2
Gadi Eisenkot, who was the Israeli Defense Forces’ Chief of Staff for the last three years, told the Sunday Times in a farewell interview that Israel had been directly involved in the Syrian conflict on the side of the Syrian rebels, something that Tel Aviv has been reluctant to acknowledge before.
Also on rt.com Israel in panic over losing their ‘dear’ ISIS & Al-Nusra terrorists in Syria – Assad
The general, who is retiring from military service, said that Israel supplied rebels at the border with light weapons for the purposes of “self-defense.”
While the direct links between Syrian rebels and Israeli commanders have been officially revealed for the first time, rumors of close military ties between the armed militants and the Israeli government have been circulating for years.
Foreign Policy magazine reported in September that Israel supplied weapons and gave money to at least 12 rebel groups holed up in southern Syria. The arrangement reportedly included Israeli officials also giving $75-per-person monthly allowances to rebel fighters, in addition to the funds their leaders received to procure weapons on the black market
In return, rebels were expected to deter Hezbollah and Iran proxies from the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan Heights.
The scheme was reportedly in effect throughout Operation Good Neighbor, which officially kicked off in June 2016 and was wrapped up only last November. Within this undertaking, Israel was openly assisting the rebels but claimed that assistance was strictly humanitarian. Israel treated wounded Syrian rebels and their families in its hospitals, provided some 1,524 tons of food, 250 tons of clothes, 947,520 liters of fuel, as well as a huge amount of medical supplies.
Read more
Israeli defense minister met with Syrian rebels, former IDF commander reveals in a first However, until recently Israel kept vigorously denying any involvement beyond that. The Jerusalem Post's report in September on the IDF confirming that it had provided light weapons to Syrian rebels was promptly pulled from its website. The newspaper told RT at the time that it was forced to remove the article by the army's censor, apparently, “for security reasons.”
In November, Maj. Gen. Gershon Hacohen, a former senior commander with the IDF, revealed that former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon had personally met with a group of Syrian rebels, without specifying the time period. Ya'alon was Israel's chief of defense from 2013 to May 2016.
The Israeli military seems to have finally begun to reveal the scope of its involvement in the Syrian conflict, previously shrouded in secrecy. In an interview with the New York Times, Eisenkot acknowledged that Israel has been waging a large-scale bombing campaign aimed at degrading Iran's military influence in the region. In 2018 alone, the IDF dropped 2,000 bombs on alleged Iran-linked targets in Syria. Sorties into the neighboring country's territory became“near-daily events” after PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s government greenlighted the expansion of the operation in January 2017, according to the retiring general.
If you like this story, share it with a friend!
