Iran Expanding Presence Near Damascus As Israel Watches
Israel says its ability to strike Iranian nuclear sites has improved and attacks could happen in a few years, while Iran is entrenching near the Syrian capital.
Israel says its ability to strike Iranian nuclear sites has improved and attacks could happen in a few years, while Iran is entrenching near the Syrian capital.
Iran is seeking to revive the expansion of its presence near Damascus, something it has always sought to do but was previously prevented by Russia, a report by Asharq Al-Awsat on Tuesday said, adding that Iran's objective is to create another “southern suburb”, commonly known as Dahieh, like the Hezbollah-dominated suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
The article alleges that the Islamic Republic is scaling up its purchase of homes and establishing new camps in areas adjacent to the zones of influence of Russia, which is currently preoccupied with its war in Ukraine.
The plan is to ultimately expand the influence of Iranian forces in the towns of the southern Damascus countryside adjacent to the Sayyidah Zeinab, a town in the Rif Dimashq Governorate, less than 10 kilometers to Damascus.
The town, locally known as Sitt Zaynab, is the main stronghold of Iranian militias and their proxies in the southern countryside of the capital.
Since late in November, Syria and Iran have been deploying new air defense systems, including jamming and early warning systems, around Damascus to prevent Israeli airstrikes in the area. There are reports that the new systems were built by Korean and Chinese companies and provided by Iran as part of agreements reached between Damascus and Tehran.
On Wednesday, Israel's defense minister said it could attack Iranian nuclear sites in two or three years, in unusually explicit comments about a possible timeline.
With international efforts to renew the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) having stalled, the Iranians have ramped up uranium enrichment, a process that can eventually yield fuel for nuclear bombs -- though they deny having any such design. For more than a decade, Israel has issued veiled threats to attack its arch-enemy's nuclear facilities if it deems world powers' diplomacy with Tehran a dead end. However, some experts doubt Israel has the military clout to deliver lasting damage to Iranian targets that are distant, dispersed and well-defended.
On Tuesday, the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi said Israel’s level of preparedness for an operation in Iran has dramatically improved.
In a speech at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies, Kochavi said that the Islamic Republic is seeking to deploy hundreds of missiles in Syria along with deploying "thousands of Shia militiamen." The army chief said Israel managed to disrupt the Iranian vision in Syria "to establish a second Hezbollah in Syria."
Iran claims it is defending the Sayyidah Zeinab shrine, which is visited regularly by thousands of Shiite pilgrims from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Before the war broke out in Syria about 12 years ago, most of the population of the southeastern countryside of Damascus, including the towns of Babila, Yalda and Beit Sahem were Sunni Muslims.
However, after Damascus regained control of the area in the summer of 2018 and local families started returning to the towns, they were approached by strangers looking to buy their homes and real estate. According to reports, it became clear that those buying the houses were the families of fighters from militias affiliated with the Islamic Republic, originally from the Shiite towns of al-Foua and Kefraya in the Idlib countryside.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met Wednesday in Muscat with the Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, calling Oman the “epicenter” of regional talks. With Yemen, Afghanistan, and Ukraine all on the agenda, the minister said these issues had to be addressed “at a faster pace.”
There is speculation, encouraged by phone calls between Amir-Abdollahian and his Omani counterpart December 22, that Muscat has a role in restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Muscat’s mediation goes back to facilitating secret Iran-United States contacts before the 2015 deal. European Union spokesman Peter Stano December 26 explained Amir-Abdollahian’s meeting in Jordan December 20 with EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell’s as “moving talks about JCPOA revival forward.”
Omani mediators have also been in Sanaa trying to bridge gaps between the government of Rashid al-Alimi and the main opposition Ansar Allah, known as the Houthis, over extending the fragile eight-month ceasefire. Iran has given some support to Ansar Allah, while Saudi Arabia began in 2015 direct military involvement, mainly with its air force.
Reports said the Omanis left December 25 without resolving differences as to whether the government or Ansar Allah should pay fighters and state employees in the third of Yemen, including 80 percent of the population, under Ansar Allah’s control. At least 370,000 people have died in the eight-year conflict, which began with protests against then president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The United Nations says a child is dying every ten minutes from preventable causes.
Keen to see the JCPOA restored, Oman has distanced itself from any push towards ‘normalization’ with Israel through extending the 2020 US-brokered ‘Abrahamic accords,’ which were widely portrayed in the US as a move against Iran. After the critical reaction of Arab football fans to Israeli journalists in December’s World Cup, and with a new Israeli government including far-right parties committed to speeding up Jewish settlements in occupied land, Muscat is mulling legislation similar to laws passed in Iraq and Kuwait sanctioning trade with Israel.
“Anything related to Israel-Saudi relations outside of security matters…has largely left the Saudi media,” the Jerusalem Post noted Wednesday. “Oman never had any serious intention of joining [the Abrahamic accords].”
Expanding trade, ‘friends with all’
Iranian regional diplomacy is pushing both the need for dialogue and expanding trade. Both were discussed at the ‘Baghdad 2’ conference December 20-21, where an Iranian delegation led by Amir-Abdollahian met with leading officials and politicians from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Egypt, France, Iraq, Jordan, and the EU.
Critical reaction in Tehran was fairly muted to a joint statement issued after the December 9 Arab-China summit where Riyadh and Beijing agreed “joint cooperation to ensure the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.” Business Insider noted December 20 that many could see that “Beijing would rather balance its relationship with regional competitors,” pursuing “a friends-with-all approach” that both expands $87-billion bilateral trade with the Saudis and also pursues, despite US sanctions, the 2021 25-year cooperation agreement with Iran envisaging potentially $400-billion Chinese investment in exchange for stable, discounted oil supplies.
Oman faces greater difficulties in two gas projects with Iran, one to supply 10 billion cubic meters/year of Iranian gas over 15 years, and one as a conduit for a 1400km, $7-billion pipeline from Iran to India for 11.3bm3/year, for which New Delhi signed a memorandum-of-understanding with Russia’s Gazprom in 2019.
However, neither Iran nor Oman has the technology to lay deep-sea pipelines and the long-delayed project needs Western technology, which in turn needs the lifting of US sanctions.
Like most provincial governors under the Raisi administration, now Sistan and Baluchistan province also has a military man on top of its administrative system. Karami replaced Hossein Modarres Khalili one of the very few civilian provincial governors.
According to Rouydad24 website, Khalili, a man with a background in economic affairs failed to make Ebrahim Raisi's promise of developing the province come true. Raisi, a hardliner, had made the promise in return for the votes the people in the province cast in his favor in the 2021 presidential election. Four years earlier, voters in the poverty-stricken region had cast their ballots mostly for reform-minded candidates.
As the commander of IRGC's Quds Headquarters in southeast Iran, Karami has been the most powerful man in Kerman and Sistan-Baluchistan provinces for several years. The government naturally expects him to help pacify the volatile security situation after months of unrest marked by the IRGC's bloody attack on protesters in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan on September 30, that killed more than 80 people.
The government also hopes that Karami's past experience will help him to succeed in development projects to alleviate poverty in the region. The former governor's inability to do so led to complaints even among government supporters.
On the other hand, Karami has paid lip service to equality between Shiite and Sunnis. This could be part of the formulaic rhetoric aimed at Sunnis, the number of times he has made such statements may indicate his interest in pacifying the Sunnis who traditionally live in the Baluchistan part of the province as opposed to the Shiite populated Sistan. Considering the consequences of the attacks that have killed over a hundred Sunnis in the past 3 months, he might need many more gestures.
Karami said in the aftermaths of IRGC attack in Zahedan and Khash as "scenes where the blood of Sunnis and Shiites mixed to support Islam against terrorism," the IRGC's Tasnim news website quoted him as saying. Meanwhile, local newspaper Asr-e Hamoon quoted Karami as saying that "Iran's enemies wish to sow discord among Iran's Shiites and Sunnis."
However, the difference between Karami and other officials who have said the same things is that he always makes a comment or two about the region's desperate need for economic progress and improvement of health and education systems.
In another development, ultraconservative daily Vatan Emrooz welcomed Karami's appointment and described his it as "a choice in favor of security." The daily wrote that one of the reasons for Karami's appointment was the escalation of “Takfiri terrorist activities” in the province and the ensuing insecurity in the region. Nonetheless, the daily observed that in his mandate for Karami, President Raisi stressed the need to improve the people's livelihood.
The daily also pointed out Karami's comment at a recent conference in the province, during which he said that "the enemies are taking advantage of the province's economic problems to sow discord between Muslim sects," a remark that highlighted both his missions, strengthening security, and improving the economy.
According to Rouydad24, the former governor's biggest weakness was his inability to control the security situation in the province. Obviously, the government can be sure that even if the new governor cannot do anything about the economy, his ability to crack down on protests is a certainty.