The fighting between the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Israeli army on the border masks another front that Iran could be tempted to energize in the event of an Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. This dormant front represents a strategic threat to both Israel and its American ally. A key link in the Shiite crescent shaped by the Islamic Republic as far as Lebanon, Syria has become a transit country for Iranian weapons and a refuge for militias loyal to Tehran, thanks to the 2011 civil war. These militias have been harassing the 900 American soldiers present in eastern Syria. From southwestern Syria, they also threaten the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights with rocket and missile fire.
On Thursday, October 26, the United States carried out strikes against facilities of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliated groups near Abu Kamal, in eastern Syria, announced US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. According to the White House, this was a warning to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following a series of attacks on its bases in Syria and Iraq, which left 21 people slightly injured and one dead from a heart attack. Earlier, on Thursday, the Syrian regime announced that it was shutting down the Damascus and Aleppo airports until further notice. The previous day, an Israeli strike had put the Aleppo airport out of action for the fourth time since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7. The Damascus airport was damaged twice by Israeli aircraft.
Israel wants to prevent arms transfers from Tehran to Syria and Lebanon, including precision-guided missiles, at a time when Hezbollah is threatening to open a new front on Israel's northern border. It also wants to send a message to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad: He would be well advised not to let himself be drawn into a war by Iran, at the risk of seeing the regime's installations targeted. The United Arab Emirates, which has been close to Damascus since normalizing relations in 2018, and to Israel since signing the Abraham Accords in 2020, sent these warning messages to Assad as early as October 7, according to the website Axios.
The Syrian president nonetheless demonstrated his strong ties to Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Damascus on October 13. "It's not an easy balancing act for Bashar Al-Assad. He cannot ensure his own survival without the military and financial help of his benefactor and guardian, Iran. But he has no interest in provoking a war with Israel," said Ali Alfoneh, an expert at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. Israeli retaliation targeting the country's infrastructure and regime facilities could worsen Syria's economic stagnation and potentially undermine the government's stability. This could impact not only the areas still resisting government control in the north and east but also those currently under its authority, like Souweida in the south, where discontent is mounting.
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