Iran supports a Russian-led effort to impose Syrian government control over the south of the war-battered country, a senior security official was quoted as saying on Saturday amid reports that Damascus is preparing a major military offensive in the area.
“We strongly support Russian efforts to drive terrorists out of the Syria-Jordan border and bring the area under Syrian army control,” the secretary of Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, told the Persian-language newspaper Sharq.
Moscow said last week that only Syrian army troops should be on the country’s southern border with Jordan and Israel, Reuters reported.
Syrian government forces, in their strongest position since the early months of the seven-year conflict, have driven rebels out of all territory near the capital Damascus this year.
For weeks there have been reports that the government’s next target would be the zone in the south, one of only two large areas left in the hands of fighters seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
Washington says any offensive in the area would violate a ceasefire it has jointly sponsored with Moscow for that part of Syria, and has warned it would take “firm measures” in response.
Rebels control stretches of southwest Syria, bordering the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, while Syrian army troops and allied militias hold nearby territory.
Shamkhani repeated Tehran’s denial that it has military advisors in that part of Syria. “We have said before that Iranian military advisers are not present in southern Syria and have not participated in recent operations,” he said.
Last week, Iran’s ambassador to Jordan said that Iranian military advisors are not present in southern Syria.
Israel’s Golden Days Over
The senior security official said there is a link between Israel’s stepped-up threats against Tehran and the defeat of Takfiri terrorists in Iraq and Syria, which has upset the regime in Tel Aviv.
The emergence of Takfiri terrorism and bloodshed in the Middle East gave Israel “incredible golden years of security,” he said.
“Now, with the defeat of Takfiri terrorists in Syria and Iraq, which Israel says is the result of Iran’s role and influence, those golden days have ended and once again Palestine has turned into the first issue in the Muslim world,” he said.
Takfiris, inspired by Saudi Wahhabism, are hardliners who accuse Muslims not following their extremist interpretation of Islam as heretics punishable by death.
Israel has claimed to have hit Iranian military targets in Syria in recent weeks and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Tel Aviv would not allow Iran to establish any military bases in Syria.
No Military Base in Syria
The Islamic Republic says its role in Syria is limited to advisory assistance to the government, stressing that it does not have any military bases in the Arab country.
Echoing that view, Syria’s foreign minister says Iranian military advisers are embedded with Syrian troops but Tehran has no combat force or permanent bases in that country.
Walid al-Moallem told reporters Saturday that Iran’s presence is legitimate and based on an invitation from the government, AP reported.
Shamkhani said, “While we understand this anger [by Israel], we will be taking the necessary actions or measure to preserve our interests and security against aggressors.”
The official also said the time for “hit-and-run” by Israel is over, citing Syria’s retaliatory rocket attacks on Israeli targets in the occupied Golan Heights last month.
The Syrian army and government, he said, now have a “high degree of self-confidence and power” to shoot down Israeli warplanes, destroy its missiles in the sky and target Israeli bases from where attacks are launched.
