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How Israel Reduced the Iranian Presence in Syria
(Ha'aretz) Amos Harel - The commander of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the U.S. in Iraq in January 2020, hoped to establish a large, independent Iranian presence in Syria based on thousands of combat troops. Israel began to take action against this in 2017 when it bombed a large Iranian base near Damascus. Since then, many of the attacks in Israel's "war between the wars" in Syria have focused on targets directly linked to the Revolutionary Guards. What remains today is just a few hundred Iranian advisers with limited capacity to cause damage. Iran still wields influence in Syria, and arms smuggling has improved Hizbullah's arsenal in Lebanon, including precision missiles. But the Iranians are far from realizing their original goal.