Quote:
Originally Posted by Laurent Rizzotti
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Laurent, that Wikipedia list is misleading. Iranian terrorism now involves primarily large-scale military and paramilitary operations by the terrorist organisations that it sponsors, not the sort of individual terrorist attacks that Wikipedia deems appropriate to list.
See description of Iran's activities at
https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2017/282844.htm:
"In 2017, Iran supported various Iraqi Shia terrorist groups, including Kata’ib Hizballah. It also bolstered the Assad regime in Syria. Iran views the Assad regime in Syria as a crucial ally and Syria and Iraq as crucial routes to supply weapons to LH, Iran’s primary terrorist group ally. Through financial or residency enticements, Iran has facilitated and coerced primarily Shia fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan to participate in the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown in Syria. Iranian-supported Shia militias in Iraq have also committed serious human rights abuses against primarily Sunni civilians.…
Since the end of the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese Hizballah conflict, Iran has supplied LH with thousands of rockets, missiles, and small arms, in direct violation of UNSCR 1701. Iran has also provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support of LH and has trained thousands of its fighters at camps in Iran. Lebanese Hizballah fighters have been used extensively in Syria to support the Assad regime."
As for Israel's continuing air strikes against targets in Syria, the S-300 story is important because there have been no fully confirmed Israeli air strikes since Russia's declaration that it would transfer the S-300 to Syria, as of today. Israeli government sources have said anonymously that strikes continue, but there have been no accounts of these from the Syrian side, until a confused report of some explosions in southern Syria late on November 29. See some English language coverage in a local newspaper, by way of illustration
https://www.timesofisrael.com/topic/syria-airstrikes/
Referring back to the issue of Russian air defences in Syria, I have become aware of an article written a month after my
two blog
posts referred to above, entitled "
Russia Expands Its Air Defense Network in Syria" and written by Matti Suomenaro and Jennifer Cafarella with the
Institute for the Study of War (ISW) Russia Team. These authors emphasised the difficulties that Russian air defences may pose, but they have also mentioned that Israel has already destroyed multiple air defence systems within Syria. Given the much greater capabilities of the United States, it is unlikely that the air defences now present in Syria will be able to significantly ihibit a future American attack.
Regards,
Dan