Syria: Assad regime is making gains and ‘planning a major push’

Recent military victories have severed rebel supply and retreat routes, allowing the regime to plan a major push to to crush divided opposition forces, a senior British security source told The Daily Telegraph.

“The Syrian opposition is doing badly and there is a risk of [further] defeats, although Assad cannot ultimately win,” the source said.

IAF Chief: S-300 is En Route to Syria; Surprise War is Possible

IAF Commander Eshel says IAF can deal with all weapon systems. “The question is only — at what cost.”

IAF Commander, Major General Amir Eshel, spoke Wednesday about the IAF’s preparedness for a surprise war scenario with Syria, and said that the S-300 anti-aircraft system is on its way to Syria.

Syrians reported attacking the Israelis on daily basis along Golan Heights

Western diplomatic sources said Israeli and Syrian forces were battling on a nearly daily basis along the Golan Heights. They said the fighting often began with Syrian Army or proxy attacks on Israel Army outposts and vehicles.

Revenge of the Bear: Russia Strikes Back in Syria

President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation has drawn a line in the sand over Syria, the government of which he is determined to protect from overthrow. Not since the end of the Cold War in 1991 has the Russian Bear asserted itself so forcefully beyond its borders in support of claims on great power status. In essence, Russia is attempting to play the role in Syria that France did in Algeria in the 1990s, of supporting the military government against rebels, many of them linked to political Islam. France and its allies prevailed, at the cost of some 150,000 dead. Can Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pull off the same sort of victory?

Even as Damascus pushes back against the rebels militarily, Putin has swung into action on the international and regional stages. The Russian government persuaded U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to support an international conference aimed at a negotiated settlement. Putin upbraided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his country’s air attacks on Damascus. Moscow is sending sophisticated anti-aircraft batteries, anti-submarine missiles and other munitions to beleaguered Assad, and has just announced that 12 Russian warships will patrol the Mediterranean. The Russian actions have raised alarums [sic] in Tel Aviv and Washington, even as they have been praised in Damascus and Tehran.

Report: Syria aims half-ton warhead missiles at Tel Aviv

Sunday Times reports the deployment of Syria’s advanced Tishreen missile batteries, which carry 500-kilogram (1100-pound) warheads and have standing orders to fire at Tel Aviv if Israel carries out any military strike on Syrian territory.

After the al Qusayr victory, Syria and Hizballah plan war on Israel

Syria and Hizballah, flushed with the success of breaking the rebel hold on the strategic town of al Qusayr, Sunday, May 19, are making no secret of their plans for the “great confrontation,” i.e. military confrontaiton with  Israel after they win the Syrian civil war.  Israel’s military leaders are taking with the utmost seriousness the words of Ibrahim al-Amin, editor of the Hizballah organ Al Akhbar, and a close buddy of Syrian president Bashar Assad, who wrote Monday:

“The rope is taut. It is taut to the limit. Anyone at either end [Israel at one end, Syrian and Hizballah, at the other] need only flex a finger and it will break, and the great confrontation will take place. This is neither a threat, nor an exaggeration or interpretation. This is the situation on the enemy’s northern front. Now means today; it means this hour,” al-Amin wrote.

Report: Assad preparing missile strike against Tel Aviv in case attacked again

The Syrian army is deploying advanced surface-to-surface missiles aiming at Israel in the aftermath of the alleged Israeli strikes, The Sunday Times reports.

Syria is making preparations to strike Tel Aviv in case Israel launches another attack on its territory, The Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

Syrian-Israeli war of words via Putin edges into Syrian-Hizballah war of attrition.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Netanyahu ended their three-hour meeting in Sochi Tuesday, May 14, at loggerheads on Syria. In fact, Putin warned his guest that Israel and its army, the IDF, were heading for war with Syria in which Russia might well be involved – and not just through the advanced S-300 anti-air missiles supplied to the Assad government. The case Netanyahu and Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi put before Putin and Russian foreign intelligence chief, SVR Director Mikhail Fradkov, fell on deaf ears.

‘Assad said Hezbollah may fight Israel from Golan’

Report: Iran persuaded Syria to open a “new front” in the Golan for all Arabs and Muslims wanting to fight Israel.

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According the report, an Iranian source told the newspaper that Tehran is determined to prevent the fall of Assad’s regime in Damascus, because the Syrian president has been convinced to open the Golan to all Arabs and Muslim wanting to fight Israel.

Russian exercise near Georgia redirected to Syria after Israeli strike

A large-scale military drill was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to intimidate a defiant Georgia for rejecting a Kremlin-proposed draft of a non-aggression pact that would recognize the runaway region of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Yet while the drill was going on in earnest, the Israelis attacked Iranian missiles inside Syria.

Israel Hints at New Strikes, Warning Syria Not to Hit Back

WASHINGTON — In a clear warning to Syria to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Islamic militants in the region, a senior Israeli official signaled on Wednesday that Israel was considering additional military strikes to prevent that from happening and that the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, would face crippling consequences if he retaliated.

Saudis explore Iranian options for Syria & Lebanon in talks with Iran’s Salehi

Saudi Arabia has decided to explore dialogue with its great regional rival Iran for ending the Syrian conflict and assuring Lebanon’s political future, debkafile’s Gulf sources report. They have given up on US policy for Syria in view of Russian and Iranian unbending support for Bashar Assad; his battlefield gains aided by Hizballah and Iranian Bassij forces; and Turkey’s inaction after Saturday’s terrorist bombings in the town of Reyhanli near the Syrian border which caused 46 deaths.