Syria: Brutal And Hated Shia Overlords

[Valin]

Strategy Page

January 12, 2021:

In the south (Golan Heights) Israeli aircraft continue to drop thousands of leaflets on Syrian villages near the border warning residents to stay away from Iranian or Hezbollah bases near the border. The civilians know where these bases are and some will do business with those in the bases. These leaflets made it clear that Israeli airstrikes on these Iranian bases and camps would be a regular occurrence. Some leaflets also call on individual Syrian unit commanders in the area to stop cooperating with the Hezbollah and Iranian Quds Force men in their area and order them to leave and not endanger local civilians.

Despite, or because of, the increased Iranian presence in southern Syria a lawless chaos exists in the Damascus suburbs and gets worse south of the city along the Israeli border area. This is where Iran is making an intense effort to gain the support of Sunni Arab civilians. The hostility and violence are a side effect of the poverty, high unemployment and hostility towards the Assad government and their Iranian sponsors. In this respect the local gangsters see their crimes as patriotic resistance to their brutal and hated Shia overlords.

The Iranians are spending a lot of money to buy, or just seize, and rehabilitate abandoned property for the locals. Iran seeks to encourage new businesses to start or defunct ones to revive. Iran will supply loans and access to supplies. The Assad government can’t do any of this and can’t openly criticize the Iranians either for seeking to buy the loyalty of Syrians along the border.

Israel is seeking to support this resistance but is silent about details, other than the constant airstrikes against Iranian targets and seeking to maintain their informant network along the border. The informants make it possible to hit Iranian targets with smart bombs, missiles or artillery even if the Iranians have gone to great lengths to conceal the locations........(Snip)