Putin
Sent Message to Israel That Its Freedom
to Act in Syria Is Over
Ambassador Bashar Jaafari says Syrian
use of anti-aircraft missiles against
Israeli fighter jets also sends another
message to Jerusalem.
By Jack Khoury
March 21, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Haaretz"
- Russia has sent a clear message to
Israel that the rules of the game have
changed in Syria and its freedom to act
in Syrian skies is over, Syria’s
ambassador to the United Nations said on
Sunday night.
“Putin sent a clear message,” said
Bashar Jaafari, speaking on Syrian
television. “The fact is that the
Israeli ambassador [to Russia] was
summoned for a conversation only a day
after he submitted his credentials [to
the Russian Foreign Ministry last
Thursday], and was told categorically
that this game is over.”
Syria’s use of anti-aircraft fire
against Israel last Thursday night has
changed the rules of the game, too,
Jaafari said, adding that Syria will not
stand idly by in the face of an Israeli
threat.
He
also claimed that when the civil war
began in Syria in 2011, opposition
militia groups sabotaged the
anti-aircraft defense systems belonging
to President Bashar Assad’s regime,
giving Israel freedom to operate.
In a separate incident, Syrian media
reported Sunday that the commander of a
militia fighting alongside the regime
was killed in an Israeli airstrike
around Quneitra, in the Golan Heights.
The Lebanese TV channel Al Mayadeen,
which is associated with Hezbollah,
identified the casualty as Yasser
Assayed, a member of the national
defense militia. A source associated
with the Assad regime said Assayad was a
commander in the Golan brigade, a
militia of Druze fighters (from villages
in the Syrian part of the Golan Heights)
who are fighting with the regime.
Between Thursday night and Friday
morning, Israeli fighter jets attacked
several targets in Syria, triggering the
most serious clash between Israel and
Syria since the civil war erupted six
years ago. In response to the airstrikes,
the Assad regime’s aerial defense system
fired several missiles at the jets.
Israel’s Arrow anti-missile defense
system was launched, shooting down one
of the missiles north of Jerusalem. The
incident forced Israel to admit for the
first time that it had launched an
aerial attack in Syria.
Following that, Israel’s ambassador to
Moscow, Gary Koren, was summoned to the
Russian Foreign Ministry for talks with
Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov
– again, an unusual development. Since
Russian forces began operating in Syria
in 2015, there have been a number of
airstrikes that foreign media have
attributed to Israel. But the Israeli
ambassador had never previously been
called in to clarify Israel’s actions.
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Netanyahu: Israel Told Russia That
IDF will Continue Attacks On Syria
"If there is a feasibility from an
intelligence and military standpoint -
we attack and so it will continue."
By JPost Staff
March 21, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- "JPost"
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told
reporters on Tuesday that Israel was not
told by Russia to put a halt to missions
inside Syrian territory.
Netanyahu said that he had made clear to
Russian President Vladimir Putin that
Israel would continue to fly missions
over Syrian airspace.
On Monday,
Syrian President Bashar Assad told
Russian parliament members, who paid an
official visit to Damascus on Monday,
that he was counting on Moscow to
prevent Israel from attacking his
country in the future.
“We are counting on Russia to prevent a
conflict with Israel,” Assad was quoted
as saying by several Russian media
outlets.
Russian news agency Interfax also quoted
him as saying that “Damascus counts on
Russia to take a role in order to
prevent Israel from attacking Syria in
the future.”
On Friday, Russia summoned Israeli
Ambassador Gary Koren to justify
Israel’s air strike in Syria
at a target near the city of Palmyra.
According to Channel 2, the strike hit
close to Russian troops. The Foreign
Ministry confirmed Koren’s meeting with
the Russians, just one day after the
ambassador presented his credentials,
but did not expand on its content.
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reserved
