by Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Indications of increased Russian involvement in Syria in support of President Bashar Assad are prompting a reassessment in Israel about how to handle fallout from the fighting in Syria without risking a clash with Moscow.
The Israel-Syria border on
the Golan Heights
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Photo credit: AFP  |
Indications of increased Russian involvement
in Syria in support of President Bashar Assad are prompting a
reassessment in Israel about how to handle fallout from the fighting in
Syria without risking a clash with Moscow.
Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011,
Israel has occasionally fired across the Golan Heights in response to
spillover shelling or has bombed advanced arms it suspected were to be
transferred to the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, a staunch ally of
the Assad regime.
U.S. and regional reports that Moscow's
diplomatic and logistical support for Assad is shifting into major
military backing has raised the prospect of Israel and Russia
accidentally coming to blows.
"There could be ramifications for us,
certainly," Ram Ben-Barak, director general of Israel's Intelligence
Ministry, told Reuters when asked if Russian intervention in Syria might
necessitate new Israeli rules of engagement.
He was speaking at a security conference
organized by the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, where Russian policy
in Syria was described both as an effort to shore up Assad and to
mobilize with other world powers in suppressing the Islamic State group.
"We have been informed that the Russians are
entering into active intervention, the Americans are attacking. ... The
West and now in fact the Russians and the whole world are trying to
unite against [Islamic State]," Amos Gilad, senior adviser to Defense
Minister Moshe Ya'alon, said in a speech.
In separate remarks to Reuters, Gilad said it
was too early to know how extensive Moscow's military involvement in
Syria would be and whether it might clip Israel's wings operationally.
"I don't know, because the scale is not yet
clear. They haven't started working. They are just building up the
capability," Gilad said of the Russian activity.
Asked if Israel was communicating with Russia
in a bid to head off any unintended confrontations between their forces,
he said only: "There are ways. They are not our enemies today."
In Moscow, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said she had no information about any communication between Israel and Russia.
Israel has sought to stay out of the Syrian
civil war, seeing enemies on all sides. It says it intervenes militarily
only when fired upon from Syria or to prevent Hezbollah operatives
reinforcing Assad there from gaining advanced weapons that could pose a
threat to it from Lebanon in the future.
Past Israeli strikes in Syria killed Syrian
troops as well as Hezbollah fighters, according to both countries and
Hezbollah, though the exact number remains unclear.
In recent days, Moscow has reaffirmed its
military backing for Damascus but said it was premature to talk about
Russian participation in military operations in Syria.
U.S. authorities have detected "worrisome
preparatory steps," including transport of prefabricated houses for
hundreds of people to a Syrian airfield, that could signal Russia is
readying for deployment of heavy military assets, a senior U.S. official
told Reuters last week.
Syria has not formally responded to the
reports. But one of its military officials has spoken of a "big shift"
in Russia's military support for Damascus.
Amos Yadlin, an ex-Israeli Air Force general
and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's former military intelligence
chief, said Israel and Russia were unlikely to find themselves pitted
against each other in Syria as they had different areas of interest.
"I don't think there is any reason for the
sides to collide, as we are not fighting the same enemy. I assume that
we will be very careful, and so will they," said Yadlin, now director of
Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies.
He predicted that Russian forces would avoid
the Golan Heights, near Israel's northern front, and Israel would think
twice about carrying out air strikes where Russians might be harmed.
"My assumption is that we don't attack any
site on the ground in Syria unless we have an excellent picture of who
is or isn't there," Yadlin said.
A senior U.S. official briefed on Israel's
actions in Syria shared Yadlin's assessment, but cautioned: "Nothing is
foolproof, so I can anticipate the Israelis will be looking anew at
their risk-assessments now."
Syria's aging air force is largely
Soviet-supplied, posing a possible scenario where similar models of jets
and choppers could be flown by local and Russian pilots.
Sam Gardiner, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel
who runs war games for various Washington agencies, said Israel would
likely be able to spot Russian-operated aircraft in good time.
"Russian aircraft would probably have a different
'signature' -- even if they're the same airplane they wouldn't be
equipped with the same electronics," he said, theorizing that the
Israelis would know which Syrian air bases were being used by Russia and
would be able to trace Russian-language radio communications to the
jets or helicopters from where they came.
Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=28181
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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