IDF blocked Iranian planes sent to assist Assad – report

This could be at least one reason why the Syrian regime folded so quickly.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The IDF prevented Iranian planes from landing in Syria over the last 10 days of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in an act that hastened the rebels’ victory, Walla reported Wednesday.

Army intelligence learned that Iran had decided that the fighting that erupted between Sunni Islamic jihadists and the Syrian army was a dangerous and growing threat that required its assistance with both advisers and arms, and it wanted to land planes full of both on airfields throughout the country.

The IDF received permission from the highest political echelon to prevent this in various ways, according to the report.

For example, Iranian pilots who arrived in the area received notices to return to their points of origin because they lacked authorization to land.

The Israeli military has used this tactic multiple times in Lebanon, when Iranian aircraft bringing aid bound for Hezbollah were prevented from landing at Beirut’s international airport.

In the last days of the regime, the report said, Iran also tried sending empty planes to quickly evacuate their senior officials with their families, as well as top Syrian allies, from the country.

According to the report, when the IDF identified these planes, they were allowed to land in order to facilitate the withdrawal of Iranian officials responsible over the last several years for efforts to build an Iranian presence over Israel’s northeastern border.

The IDF does not know how many planes were prevented from reaching Syria, but army sources are convinced that the action created a chain effect and deepened the pressure on the Syrian regime, the report said.

The reported Israeli move may have fed the false claim the Iranians have advanced that both the U.S. and Israel were behind the overthrow of their ally, which was made to excuse their failure to save Assad.

It had surprised many that Iran did not seem to make a serious effort to prop up the regime as it had done very successfully, along with major assistance from Hezbollah and Russia, during the civil war that engulfed the country in 2011.

Active fighting ended in 2018 with Assad in control of central Syria but other parts held by various forces, including the jihadists, who occupied and ran the Idlib region before breaking out in late November after a ceasefire was signed between a much-weakened Hezbollah and Israel.

Syria was perhaps the crown jewel in the Islamic Republic’s so-called “ring of fire” around Israel.

With borders along the Jewish state, Lebanon, and Iraq, Syria was perfectly placed to route arms and missiles through compliant terror groups in southern Iraq to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran’s largest proxy army against Israel.

It also acted as a forward base for Iran itself, leading to the IDF regularly bombing its military sites in Syria in what was known in Israel as a “war between the wars.”