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New Israeli Unit Targets Syrian Border Threats
(Defense News) Barbara Opall-Rome - On Israel's Golan Heights frontier, the Israel Defense Forces is using the latest intelligence collection technologies and a new frontline division dedicated to combating multiplying threats spawned by the war raging in Syria. The new Bashan Division contains forces responsible for defending and defeating all threats in the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon sectors as part of the IDF's Northern Command. The division includes a new combat intelligence collection battalion using the latest systems. Aside from three or four villages at the border still controlled by forces fighting for Assad's regime, Israel's Golan Heights frontier is largely in rebel hands. "Among rebel forces, the moderates are increasingly exhausted while the radicals have become strengthened. The moderates lack sufficient external backing, and they're losing the support of the local population, all of which benefits the radicals," a senior IDF officer said. In addition to Global Jihad forces operating in Syria, there are an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 Hizbullah forces and another 2,000 Iraqi volunteers fighting on behalf of the Assad regime. Additionally, hundreds of advisers, supervisors and commanders of the Al-Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are providing tactical command and control in battles against the rebels.