Jonathan Spyer

Jerusalem Post, 28/7

The kidnapping of the Russian-Israeli Princeton doctoral student and Middle East analyst Elizabeth Tsurkov in Baghdad is the latest indication of who really runs Iraq.  The Ktaeb Hizballah organization, identified by the government of Israel and by people close to Tsurkov as the body responsible for her abduction, is a legal part of both Iraq’s ‘security forces’, and, in a different iteration, of its parliament, and of its ruling coalition.  Simultaneously, it is engaged in an ongoing campaign of harassment, kidnapping and possibly also killing of US and western targets in Iraq, on behalf of its paymasters and controllers in Iran.  

I should probably at this point declare an interest.  Elizabeth Tsurkov is not the first Israeli citizen to have enjoyed this organization’s hospitality.  That honor, such as it is, belongs, I believe, to myself.  In the summer of 2015, as part of a reporting project on the then little noted Shia militia mobilization in Iraq, I spent a few days with the organization’s fighters in Anbar Province, western Iraq.  I even interviewed KH’s legendary founder and leader, Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, at a dusty militia base outside the oil town of Baiji, north of Baghdad.  At the time, the ISIS war was at its height, and the Shia militias were oddly and momentarily on the same side as the US-led coalition.  They had been mobilized as part of the ‘Popular Mobilization Framework’ (PMU) to face the ISIS challenge.

The Islamic State in Iraq is a fading memory.  This does not mean, of course, that it or something like it will not rise again.  Iraq’s Sunnis are for now a defeated and apparently largely quiescent population.  No one should assume that this stance will last for ever.  But the Shia-dominated PMU, in any case, is still in existence, is now part of the state security forces, and is growing stronger. 

Unlike Tsurkov, I managed to get myself a safe distance from Ktaeb Hizballah before it discovered who I was. I have not changed the assessment of the group that I made at that time, gathered from observation of its fighters in action, and from talks with rank and file operatives and commanders. Ktaeb Hizballah was then, and remains, in its own way an impressive organization.  The fighters I spoke to saw themselves as part of an elite fighting force. That self image is probably exaggerated.  But they are a well-equipped, tactically able, youthful and committed militia.  Analogous, if analogies are necessary, to the organization’s namesake in Lebanon a couple of decades ago, before the Islamic Republic of Iran began to build the latter into a semi conventional army. 

The US has long been aware of the threat posed by Ktaeb Hizballah.  Abu Mahdi al Muhandis was killed in a US drone strike in the Baghdad airport area in January, 2020.  It was the same strike which killed IRGC Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani.  The disappearance of its founder has not curtailed the organization’s activities.  Ashab al Kahf (the Companions of the Cave), considered by many Iraq watchers to be a front for the organization, killed a US citizen, Stephen Troell, in Baghdad in November, 2022.  On July 14, KH organized a noisy protest outside the US embassy in Baghdad.  The Tsurkov kidnapping is just part of an ongoing campaign targeting westerners. 

Alongside all this, the group is part of Iraq’s ruling establishment.  Ktaeb Hizballah took part in the 2021 Iraqi elections.  Its ‘Hoquq’ (Rights) bloc formed part of the Coordination Framework, which brought together various pro-Iran Shia parties and IRGC-supported Shia militias in their political iteration.  In October 2022 the Coordination Framework managed to out-maneuver its rivals and emerge as the core of the current Iraqi government. 

One militia leader quoted in a recent article by veteran Iraq researcher Michael Knights referred to current Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as a ‘general manager’, saying that ‘the prime minister must not monopolize the state’s decisions; rather, he must refer to the Coordination Framework…for strategic decisions, whether political, economic, or security.’

A parliamentarian associated with the militias said that ‘the muqawama (resistance – a word used to describe the pro-Iran element) has come to represent the official view of Iraq, and it is the one running affairs today.” Some observers of Iraq, indeed, have begun to refer to Sudani’s administration as the ‘muqawama government.’ 

Sudani’s government has steeply increased the number of fighters organized within the PMU. There are now 216,000 combatants serving in this framework. The current government has  also allowed the PMU to create a contracting company, named after (who else) Ktaeb Hizballah’s Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The company is modelled after the IRGC’s contracting and engineering arm, the Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters. 

There are already indications that the current Iraqi government is giving the Muhandis company preferential treatment in awarding tenders.  The establishment of the company further blurs the dividing lines between the Iraqi state and the Iranian interest, and raises the possibility of the Iranian project amassing revenue from Iraqi state contracts. This in turn would establish a process whereby western or Gulf investments and projects in Iraq would end up producing revenue for the rival Iranian interest in the country. 

Oddly, amid all this, the al-Sudani government of which Ktaeb Hizballah forms a part also seeks to maintain normal relations with the US.  Sudani has expressed the hope that Iraq could maintain relations with the US of a similar type to those enjoyed by Saudi Arabia and other oil and gas producing nations.  He met with Defense Secretary Lloyd J.Austin in March. The two expressed their commitment to the ongoing ‘360-degree U.S.-Iraq strategic partnership.’

It is a strange sort of ‘partnership.’  One branch of the power structure promotes normalized economic relations with the west.  Another seeks to establish bodies and processes whereby western and Gulf investment ends up providing net economic benefits for the Iranian project that opposes both. And still another part carries out shootings, assassinations, and kidnappings of western targets. As of now, the United States appears to be prepared to accept this arrangement. 

Elizabeth Tsurkov, in short, is currently incarcerated by a partner within the current Iraqi government.  Rumors currently doing the rounds suggest that she is no longer in Iraq, but rather has been transferred across the border to Iran.   This would make sense.  Ktaeb Hizballah, in addition to being a coalition partner in Iraq, is a component in a structure seeking the absorption of the Iraqi state by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The ability of Ktaeb Hizballah to carry out murders and abductions on Iraqi soil without consequence is testimony to just how far that ambition has advanced, and, indeed, to who really runs Iraq.

(A version of this article appeared in The Australian weekend edition, 22/7)

‘We think we’re doing well and moving forward, and that no other force could move faster than us,’  Oleg, 42, a company sergeant major in the Ukrainian Army’s 80^th Air Assault Brigade tells me, dismissing criticisms of slow Ukrainian progress in the current offensive.  ‘taking back 100 meters of our homeland is a big distance too, and it means a lot for Ukraine.’ 

We are at a training facility somewhere west of Bakhmut. This area saw bitter fighting throughout the months of spring, culminating in a declaration of ‘victory’ by the Wagner PMC leader Yevgeny Prigozhin on May 20^th.  Prigozhin, evidently, spoke too soon. Now, the city and its surrounding area are in play once again. And now it is the Ukrainians who are grinding forward, to the south and north of Bakhmut, making gains daily and raising the possibility of an encirclement of  the Russian forces. 

The cost is heavy, tho, and gains are being made only as a result of titanic, daily efforts by the fighters on the ground.  In early July, I spent a week in the company of a number of the units at the cutting edge of the Ukrainian offensive in this area.  ‘Steady gains to both the north and south of the Russian-held town,’ according to a terse statement by British Defence Intelligence issued on July 8, widely quoted in Ukrainian media.  ‘The site of some of the most intense fighting along the front.’  This is what those sentences mean as seen from below. 

The 80^th airborne is one of the units that bore the brunt of the Russian assault in Bakhmut throughout the months of winter and spring.  We met with one of the assault battalions of the unit at a training facility a few kilometers behind the frontline in the Bakhmut region.  The battalion had been taken from the line for a few ‘rest’ days before its next deployment.  Rest, however, for Ukrainian combat units in the summer of 2023, doesn’t have its usual connotation.  The days away from the line are used by the fighters to hone and practice their tactical skills, and by commanders to discuss the enemy’s tactics and formulate and develop responses. 

‘When we’re away from the frontlines, even after one or two days, you start to lose skills,’ Oleksandr, 23, one of the fighters of the 80^th, told us.  ‘so we practice every day.  How to clear trenches, how to clear buildings, how to stand and move correctly.’ 

The 80^th is a long standing unit of the Ukrainian army, tracing its origins back to the first days of Ukrainian independence.  But like other Ukrainian units, it had to quickly expand and take in new fighters when the Russian invasion came.  Oleksandr, like many of the men currently engaged with the 80^th, had no experience of soldiering prior to the war.  ‘I got mobilized, and trained for 40 days,’ he tells me. ‘but the main knowledge I have, I got from the fighting itself, and from my brothers here.’ 

Nazar, a 27 year old former solar panels engineer from the Kyiv area, toyed with a grenade from his pouch as he recalled the details of the bitter, close quarter fighting in Bakhmut. 

“The closest I had was at 10 meters.  They were coming forward with Kalashnikovs.  About 15 people.  I can’t describe the feeling, really.  A lot of adrenaline.  I didn’t even understand what I was doing. 

We fought Wagner, and then some mobilized Russians too.  The Russians would use artillery in the morning, and then Wagner would just come forward.  Many of them died…With Wagner, the feeling was that we’ll kill them, or if they go back, then their own guys will kill them.’ 

Watching the mobilized fighters of the 80^th airborne go through their paces on the training ground, their fluency and confidence with their weapons was obvious.  These young, mobilized civilians, with their minimal training and their immense combat experience are at the brunt of the largest conventional war seen in Europe for 80 years.  For Ukraine, and perhaps for Europe too, everything hangs on their ability, and the ability of thousands of others like them, to hold fast and keep moving forward. 

Currently, in the Bakhmut fighting, the role of artillery is crucial, as the Ukrainians seek to soften up the Russian positions before sending their infantry and armour forward.  To the north and south of the city, Ukrainian gunners daily pound the Russian positions.  Villages like Klischiivka to Bakhmut’s immediate south have become crucial targets, offering control of the high ground above the city.   The Russians are proving no less tenacious in defense as the Ukrainians showed themselves to be last year, in the early months of the invasion. 

 The Ukrainian gun positions are well hidden in wooded areas, concealed from the attentions of Russian drones.  The gunners’ dug outs are a small distance away, dank, stifling and concealed under the earth.  The moments of vulnerability come when the gun crews must make it from one to the other, sprinting across the  open ground to reach the gun position and begin their work. 

At an L119 howitzer position of the 80^th brigade, outside Kostyantynivka, south west of Bakhmut, the mood was nevertheless optimistic.  Like their infantry comrades, these men are relative newcomers to their trade.  They have similarly had the chance to learn fast, through practical experience.  The  British-made L119 has been on the Ukrainian battlefield since late last year.  It is a light, towed weapon, in keeping with the airmobile composition of the 80^th Brigade.  The crew operating the howitzer were part of one of the brigade’s mortar platoons prior to the war.  A short training period ‘maximum one month -maybe even less, and maybe its enough because then we get more experience in the practical context,’  Andrey, 33, one of the gun crew, told us, and they were thrown into the Bakhmut fight. 

We watched as the gunners blazed away on the L119, firing volley after volley of shells beneath the heat of the mid-day sun.  Seeking to batter open the gateway eastwards.  Andrey, on one knee a little behind the gun, receiving the coordinates from further forward. Oleg, 34, the commander, adjusting the range accordingly, and the crew keeping up the pace of the fire.  ‘There’s a need to be very precise, and to maintain very good communications, because the forces are bunched up there together – to avoid some terrible mistake.’ 

Here, at least, there appeared little doubt regarding the nature of the offensive, and its pace.  ‘The command are trying to minimize casualties,’ said Oleg, 34, the gun commander. ‘So that’s why we’re doing it step by step.’  Little doubt either, regarding the centrality of their task.  ‘Its on us.  We know that.  We’re responsible for the success of it.  And that’s all.’  Each day, from the dug out to the gun emplacement,  pounding away at the Russian defenses. 

Further ahead, around Klishchiivka and Chasiv Yar, clashes are taking place daily, with heavy casualties on both sides.    

At a casualty clearing station somewhere close to the frontlines, we witnessed close up the efforts of the Ukrainian medical teams to fight for the lives of wounded soldiers.  The ‘stabilization point’ was located in an anonymous looking building in an otherwise deserted village.  This is one of the sites where soldiers wounded in battle receive their first, vital medical attention, before, if they survive, being transported further on to the hospital in Druzhkivka.   The station is under the command of the 5^th Assault Brigade, a Ukrainian Army formation assembled at the beginning of the 2022 invasion. 

Dimitri, 40, a former surgeon from Kyiv, is the commander of the station.  He was running a company doing clinical trials in the years preceding 2022.  He volunteered for the army in the first days of the war, when the Russians were menacing the Ukrainian capital. 

“Our job here is mainly to stabilize injuries and most importantly to control bleeding.  We do re-animation if necessary, and then we move soldiers to the hospital.”

And surgery?  “Surgery in these conditions is impossible.  Theres no electricity in the city.  Everything’s run by generators. But we have all the necessary materials and medicines for controlling bleeding.  We can have anywhere between 15 and 120 cases in a day.  2-4% of them are bullet wounds.  Lots of shrapnel wounds, concussions, mine wounds. Some cases of chemical weapons, though no fatalities from that yet.”

The atmosphere inside the station is close and oppressive. The necessity for security means that no daylight gets in.  So even in the middle of the day, light is maintained by a few flickering bulbs.  This  creates an eerie, slightly out of time atmosphere, which the thick walls with their peeling whitewash and the 1950s long corridors help along. 

Margarita, 27, from Poltava, is one of Dimitri’s team at the station.  A dentist by training, she was in the middle of her internship when the war broke out and joined the army in the first days.  It’s a quiet afternoon at the station when we arrive, and there is time for talking.

“I was worried about my relations, my friends and parents, so I decided I could be more useful here.  I didn’t have a husband, or kids, so why not?  First I was in Kyiv. The brigade was forming.  And from summer last year, I’m in the Donetsk region, with the brigade.” 

As we are speaking, information comes in that  a badly wounded casualty is being brought to the station. The slow afternoon atmosphere abruptly changes.  A minute or so later, a light armored vehicle parks outside, and the team rush to bring in the wounded man.

 The soldier, a well-muscled young man with his body covered in tattoos, is swiftly stretchered in and placed on the operating table.  His uniform taken off, several holes are apparent in his back and upper thighs. Shrapnel wounds. The team, Margarita, Dimitri and the others swiftly set to work.  The young man is half-conscious, moaning.  Monitoring equipment is placed on his chest.  There is tension in the dank air as the work progresses.  Hardly any talking.  About ten people gathered around the operating table, in the half light of a single bulb, and the young man’s body attached to a welter of tubes and wires. and then, gradually, the tension lifts.  The bleeding has been stalled, the situation stabilised.  The soldier, within a few minutes, is back in the vehicle and on his way to the hospital in Druzhkivka. 

The quiet and calm slowly return.  “Everything’s challenging,” Margarita told us before we left.  “but most of all, the psychological side.  You see all these very young men, injured, sometimes shaking and lashing out, and they’re so very young, to find themselves in that state.”

On the road, further south, we saw the body of a Russian soldier.  It looked like it had been there for a while, the flesh almost disappeared, the skull with a thin film of skin turned brown in the sun stretched over it, and a gaping hole in the top of the head.  His weapon gone.  The sad remnants of a Russian uniform and webbing still on his body, and his legs twisted in that curious, un-natural angle that one sometimes sees in corpses on battlefields. 

This is the Ukraine counter offensive, from the Bakhmut front, close up.  Mobilized civilians, high morale, good organization.  Forward motion, yes, but grinding  and slow and at a heavy cost.  The breakthrough cannot come too quickly for the young Ukrainians that crew the armies of President Volodymyr Zelensky and General Valery Zaluzhny.  Perhaps the real hammer blow lies ahead, and perhaps it will come, somewhere on the 1200 km frontline, before the end of summer.  In the meantime, the 80^th airborne brigade are on their way back to the frontline in Bakhmut, the direction is forward, and the guns begin each morning.

The pro-Assad activists at Electronic Intifada, in an article entitled ‘What we know about Elizabeth Tsurkov’ are trying their feeble best to get a Jewish woman currently held in Iraq murdered.

I’m not going to link to their site, so if you want to see the piece in full, you’ll need to head there yourself. But re. the substance of their claims, they imply that Tsurkov is a spy in the pay of the Israeli government (of which she is in fact a bitter opponent). It is difficult to see why anyone would seek to spread rumors of this kind except if their intention was to do all in their power to cause harm to Tsurkov, and if the claim sticks, to place her in yet greater physical peril than she already finds herself. I suppose it would be mistaken to seek even the most elementary level of moral development among supporters of the murderous Assad regime. Saying that an Assad supporter lacks a moral framework is kind of a tautology. I do find it astonishing tho that taking positions and actions of this kind apparently has no cost in terms of access to a certain part of the mainstream in media and research circles.

I want to focus on a slightly different aspect, tho. Tsurkov’s gleeful tormentors at EI apparently think that Jewish and Israeli researchers and journalists should meekly accept the pronunciation by Arab nationalist and Islamist dictatorships and movements, that our right to pursue our profession in their countries is forbidden – at the same time that anti-Israel and anti-Jewish outlets like al-Jazeera and al-Mayadeen are freely permitted to operate in Israel.

No deal. For a decade and a half, as those who know my work will be aware, I ignored their efforts to shut down the pursuit of news – and worked up close and very deep into their countries and organizations, from every front and every side. Thanks, I think, to a somewhat more meticulous attitude than Elizabeth Tsurkov’s to op-sec, a quite developed ability to read situations and, not least, a great deal of luck, I was never caught by the dictatorships that Electronic Intifada supports.

The ethical questions regarding protection of sources in these situations are real and substantive. Without going into detail, (and you can assume that where shills for Assad may be reading, I certainly wont be having a discussion re. sources and methods), journalists and researchers of our ilk take meticulous care in this regard. I regard myself as having stumbled in this area only once, In Baghdad in 2015, in a situation I regret but which did not result in tragedy, only some worry for a person who did not deserve this. But in this regard, again, those who profess concern should address their concerns to the regimes that try and stop us from pursuing our profession on grounds of our nationality/ethnicity. Ultimately, they are the ones responsible.

Try and imagine, if you will, if, say, the white minority regime in Rhodesia had tried to ban foreign black African journalists from researching or writing on its conflict. Would people of conscience have instructed such journalists to meekly concede to such an edict? or would they, rightly, have encouraged them to defy such an outrageous demand in all ways possible? This is a direct parallel to the situation vis a vis Israeli Jewish journalists and work in such countries as Syria and Iraq.

I agree with Elizabeth Tsurkov on very little, and have some reservations re her work. I think her research on Israel’s support of militias in south west Syria, nevertheless was ground breaking and among the most valuable of such work in the Syrian context. Regardless, I wish for her safe return from captivity to her home and homeland in the shortest possible time. As for the ghouls at ‘Electronic Intifada’, their moral level as evidenced by their latest activity makes them truly worthy and suitable servants of the blood-soaked Assad dictatorship, the Iraqi Shia militias and their backers in Teheran.

They and Tsurkov largely agree on the Israel-Palestinian conflict (both EI and Tsurkov are strongly anti-Zionist and anti-Israel). The reasons for their extreme hostility to her, I think, are a combination of two factors: 1. the fact that she is an Israeli-Jewish woman, and they are motivated by a violent hatred of Israeli Jews which applies regardless of the opinions or preferences of the Israeli Jew in question, and 2. Tsurkov was in her work a strong critic of the Assad dictatorship, and the people at EI are among its supporters. The Assad dictatorship, probably not coincidentally in this regard in terms of the habits of thought of its supporters, is a regime based consciously and directly on European fascism.

Jerusalem Post, 7/5

In a briefing to defense reporters in mid-April, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant noted that under his stewardship, Israeli attacks on Iranian infrastructure had significantly increased.  ‘Since I took office,’ Gallant said, ‘in the first quarter of 2023 we doubled the rate of attacks in Syria.’   Israel’s current actions in Syria take place in the context of a rapidly shifting regional strategic picture, in which the imperative of facing down an emboldened Iran is becoming both increasingly urgent, and increasingly complex.  

Gallant in his briefing outlined a clear strategic perception of developments, at the center of which was the Iranian notion of ‘unification of the arenas.’  This phrase, which occurs frequently in statements by Iranian leaders and in pro-Iran regime propaganda, refers to the emergent situation in which Teheran  seeks to use the various proxies and franchises that it has assembled around Israel in a single, co-ordinated effort. Israel can no longer assume that an escalation against Gaza will remain confined to a dual contest between Israel and the Hamas authority that rules that area.  Similarly, action against Iranian proxies in the West Bank may produce a response from pro-Iran elements in Lebanon, friction over the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem may lead to a response from Gaza, and so on. 

There are already a number of examples of how this dynamic applies in practice.  Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021 was triggered after Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza launched missiles from the Strip in response to events related to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.  In that instance, however, the Palestinian front could still be seen as a single, separate arena, taking in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem.  The more ominous incidents, suggesting a more significant widening of the circle, took place over the last two months.  They were the dispatch by Lebanese Hizballah of an operative carrying a sophisticated explosive device from Lebanon on March 15, with the intention that the device be detonated in Israel, and the launching with Hizballah’s and Iran’s permission of a barrage of rockets from south Lebanon by Hamas on April 6^th. 

Israel thus confronts, as the defense minister put it, the ‘end of the era of limited conflicts…We are facing a new security era in which there may be a real threat to all arenas at the same time.’ 

In this regard, it is worth noting that the circle should not necessarily be widened to include only Lebanon and Syria.  Iran’s seeding of missile capacities among its franchise militias in western Iraq over recent years has been widely reported.  The systems in question, Zelzal, Fateh-110 and Zolfaqar missiles, bring Israel within range. The Zolfaqar, for example, has a claimed range of 750km.  The distance from al-Qaim on the Iraq-Syria border to Tel Aviv is 632 km.  The current Iraqi government of Mohammed Shia al-Sudani rests on the support of the Iranian franchise militias, and turns a blind eye to their activities.

From the point of view of command and control, Teheran today possesses a contiguous structure and area of de facto control stretching all the way from The Iran-Iraq border to Lebanon, the Mediterranean and the Syria-Israel border.  Because of the relative stability of Jordan and Israel’s control of the Jordan Valley, this area does not have a contiguous link to the West Bank. But in both Gaza and the West Bank, Iran has franchises available for activation. 

This archipelago of militias, backed and armed by a powerful state, is what would be activated against Israel, in the event that the multi-front war discussed by the defense minister were to take place. 

Gallant’s claim that Israeli activity on the Syrian front has increased since he took office appears borne out by the facts.  According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights,  as quoted in the Saudi Sharq al Awsat newspaper, Israel struck Syria 9 times between March 30 and April 29.  The Observatory, which maintains an extensive network within Syria,  reported that 6 attacks were conducted from the air, and 3 from the ground.  9 Iran-associated personnel were killed in the strikes, according to SOHR.  These included 5 IRGC operatives, including a senior officer, 2 members of Lebanese Hizballah and 2 members of the ‘Syrian Resistance Brigades for the Liberation of the Golan’ (an IRGC franchise militia recruiting from among residents of the Golan area). 

SOHR suggested that the strikes resulted in the destruction of about 23 targets, including weapons and ammunition depots, and vehicles.  The Observatory concluded that this level of breadth and intensity of Israeli strikes is indeed without precedent.  Another attack, at the Aleppo airport, took place since the publication of the SOHR report. 

It appears that Israel is seeking to maintain deterrence and demonstrate the balance of capacities vis a vis Iran by intensifying activities  – but on one front only, that of Syria.  As to whether this will prove sufficient to break the growing confidence on the Iranian side evidenced by the recent incidents in Megiddo and south Lebanon, this remains to be seen. 

In this regard, parallel developments on the diplomatic front may also play a role.  If Israel was once able to see itself as part of an emergent anti-Iranian regional front, such a notion now appears remote.  Indeed, Arab diplomacy appears now to be pushing in a direction in which Israel could find itself increasingly isolated in its determined stance against Iran. 

In Amman this week, the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and, notably, Syria, took part in a joint meeting.  This was the first visit of the Syrian foreign minister, Feisal Mekdad, to Jordan since the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011.  The meeting was the latest sign of the return of the Assad regime to the Arab diplomatic fold, and the efforts by a number of Arab states currently under way to re-legitimise the regime. 

In a statement following the meeting, the Arab foreign ministers pledged, among other things, to  ‘support Syria and its institutions in any legitimate efforts to expand control over its lands, impose the rule of law, end the presence of armed and terrorist groups on Syrian lands and stop foreign interference.’ 

Regarding support for Assad’s endeavors in advancing the rule of law, this author’s capacity for irony concedes defeat and there is nothing to add.  Substantively, however, such statements reflect an effort to revive an Arab-centered diplomacy, and to meet the Iran-led regional alliance halfway in a spirit of cooperation.  From this point of view, the Amman meeting is the latest downstream effect of the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s rapprochement with Teheran.  So even as Israel finds it necessary to escalate in Syria, the main states of the Arab world are moving in precisely the opposite direction.

Arab moves reflect a sober assessment of the regional balance of power. The traditional centers of Arab diplomacy have concluded that their American patron is no longer interested in a substantial regional presence. They are therefore seeking a new equilibrium.   

Israel, which the Islamic regime in Teheran has marked for destruction, has no such option.  The result is that Jerusalem now faces the prospect of continuing efforts to halt and roll back the Iranian regional advance not as part of a coalition, but rather alone.  The extent of Teheran’s ambitions mean that efforts by Arab diplomacy to reconcile with it may well be short lived.  In the interim period, the task facing Israeli policy will be to use its superior physical capacities to continue to disrupt, frustrate and deter Iran’s regional project, in the context of a distinctly less advantageous diplomatic environment.  Achieving such a task and rebuilding deterrence against an emboldened Teheran may well require action beyond the specific confines of Syria. 

Jerusalem Post, 14/4

Recent events in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Israel and the West Bank suggest that a concerted effort is under way by the Iran-led regional bloc to increase pressure on Israel.   The evidence suggests that the possibility that this may result in war has been taken into account, and the Iranians and their allies have decided to move ahead nevertheless and take this risk. 

The infiltration from south Lebanon by an operative carrying a claymore mine on March 13, and the launching of 34 rockets from south Lebanon by Hamas on April 6 are the main indications that a concerted attempt is under way.  These attacks have been accompanied by a series of ostentatious meetings between Hizballah leaders in south Lebanon and delegations from both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and by incendiary messages from the leaders of various components in this bloc.    

Statements by senior Iranian officials in recent days have, for example, enthusiastically predicted the imminent collapse of Israel.  President Ebrahim Raisi, quoted by the Revolutionary Guard linked Tasnim channel   on Wednesday, said that the ‘Zionists are fighting each other and are in a hurry to destroy themselves.’  Iranian army chief Major-General Abdolrahim Mousavi said that ‘we are observing the confusion and disorientation of the hegemonic system, especially the clearer signals of collapse and breakdown of the Zionist regime.” 

Rumblings in pro-Iran regional media such as the Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper repeat the strategy according to which the unifying symbol of the al-Aqsa mosque is to be used to ‘unify the arenas’ of Lebanon, Gaza, Jerusalem, the West Bank and pre-1967 Israel.’ 

Israel’s response, so far, has been hesitant, and uncertain. A recent Israeli media report quoted an assessment given by the IDF to the Cabinet according to which the Hizballah leadership was not forewarned of the Hamas plan to launch rockets from south Lebanon, did not give the go ahead for it, and hence should not be held responsible for it. 

The military is of course privy to sources of information vastly beyond those of this author.  Nevertheless, some scepticism toward this assessment is unavoidable. Perhaps unusually among Israel-based correspondents, I have had the experience of travelling across Lebanon south of the Litani in a non-military context.  It is one of the most tightly secured areas on earth.  Vehicles without license plates, often with blacked out windows, are ubiquitous in every village and town.  These, and similarly unmarked motorcycles, are the visible evidence of the Hizballah presence.  Behind this representation, without doubt, is a yet wider circle of invisible surveillance. 

The notion that Hamas or any other Palestinian organization could have brought into this area the necessary personnel and equipment required to launch 34 rockets at Israel without the knowledge of Hizballah severely strains credulity.

Quite apart from the practical difficulties, it seems less than likely that at a time of visible rapprochement between the two organizations, Hamas would take upon itself of its own volition to embroil Hizballah in its actions against Israel.   Sunni Hamas and Shia Hizballah backed different sides in the Syrian civil war.  Hamas, with its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, sought to align with what it thought was an emergent new bloc of conservative Islamic regimes.  Hizballah, of course, as a Shia franchise of the IRGC, stayed with its patron.  But the Sunni Islamic bloc that Hamas sought to be part of never emerged.  Hamas was forced to try to find its way back to the pro-Iran bloc. With the ‘Arab Spring’ period now a fading memory, it has largely done so.  It makes no sense that it would now jeopardise this process. 

The inevitable conclusion is that this assessment is most likely inaccurate.  As to whether it was given in order to support a policy preference according to which Israel would respond to the rocket fire in only a limited way, avoiding all damage to Hizballah facilities, one can only speculate. 

The apparently co-ordinated series of attacks which Israel is currently experiencing should be seen as emerging from a strategy and praxis of long standing held by Iran and its various franchises and clients.  Veteran Israeli journalist and analyst Ehud Yaari, writing shortly after the Second Lebanon War of 2006, termed this outlook the ‘Muqawama (resistance) Doctrine.’ This doctrine, according to Ya’ari, advocates an open-ended campaign of military pressure against Israel, conducted for the most part by non-state forces.  The goal, as he expressed it, is the ‘methodical erosion of the enemy’s resolve.’  The belief underlying this project is that Israel is an internally weak society, beset by contradictions.  The intention therefore is to subject this fragile vessel to unrelenting pressure, in the belief that eventually it will begin to crack, and will eventually crumble. 

The adherents to this doctrine evidently think that an important moment in this process has been reached, given the current internal crisis in Israel.  They are therefore keen to increase the pressure, and are prepared to take significant risks and depart from previous patterns of operation. 

The outlook described above is in many ways a descendant of earlier Arab and Palestinian nationalist perceptions of Israel, dating back to the first days of the conflict with Zionism.  The current challenge differs from earlier manifestations, however, in that it is headed by a state (Iran) with a particular and sophisticated understanding of the melding of state power with irregular military activity, and the combining of conventional military, paramilitary and political forms of activity.  Iran’s methods in this regard have delivered it significant achievements elsewhere in the region, in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon. 

The focus on this campaign goes back to the first days of the Islamist regime in Iran, and indeed precedes the 1979 Islamic revolution, in the thinking of those who led it.  Ayatollah Khomeini, writing in 1968, for example, asserted that ‘the danger is directed at the very essence of Islam, it is the duty of all Muslims, and specifically of Islamic states, to take the initiative for the obliteration of this pond of decay (Israel) with all possible means.’ 

Sheikh Naim Qassem, a veteran and very senior official of Lebanese Hizballah,  quoted from Surah al-Israa of the Quran in his history of his movement, to explain the nature of its campaign.  The quote reads ‘And we decreed for the  Children of Israel in the scripture: Ye verily will work corruption in the earth twice, and ye will become great tyrants.  So when   the time for the first of the two came, We roused against you slaves of Ours of great might, who ravaged (your) country, and it was a threat performed…When the time for the second of the judgements came, We roused against you others of Our slaves to ravage you, and to enter the Temple even as they entered it the first time, and to lay waste all that they conquered with an utter wasting.’ 

The available evidence would suggest that the leaders of this bloc have discerned a moment of opportunity, for the advancement of the project described above.  Israeli planners may have concluded that the current divided Israeli house was in no shape for embarking on a determined response to the recent acts of aggression.  If so,  Israel’s leaders should be aware that given the nature of the thinking on the other side, the projection of weakness and hesitancy is likely to instil greater confidence, leading to further erosion of deterrence, and increasing the likelihood of additional and yet more reckless moves in the period ahead. 

But how much substance lies behind the rhetoric?

Jerusalem Post, 25/3

Ali Ramzi al-Aswad, a senior member of the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, was shot dead on Sunday, March 19, in the Qudsaya area of Damascus.  According to a report in the pro-Hizballah, pro-Assad Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar, unidentified assailants fired more than 30 rounds from automatic weapons at al-Aswad, as the Islamic Jihad operative walked from his home to his car.  Al-Akhbar and other regional media outlets immediately assumed that Israel was responsible for the killing. 

An editorial in the same al-Akhbar, published on March 20^th, sought to locate the killing of al-Aswad within the broader context of the current escalation in tensions between Israel and Hizballah. 

This escalation derives from the significant uptick this year of violence in the northern West Bank, and from growing indications that Lebanese Hizballah, with its Iranian patrons behind it, is seeking to assist, capitalize on and extend the scope of this violence.  In this regard, the recent incident in Megiddo, in which an operative entered Israel from Lebanon equipped with weaponry including a sophisticated claymore mine, represents until now the clearest practical evidence of this attempt at linkage.  So how seriously should these efforts be taken?

The al-Akhbar editorial was written by the paper’s chief editor, Ibrahim Amin.  Amin is a close associate of the Hizballah leadership and of the movement’s general secretary, Hassan Nasrallah.  As such, his writings often reflect the thinking of senior currents of the pro-Iran axis in Lebanon and elsewhere, and are hence worthy of particular attention. 

Amin locates current events within the framework of the approaching month of Ramadan. He asserts that  ‘events, consultations and contacts seen and unseen’ suggest that ‘the coming month of Ramadan will be an occasion to announce a new, more effective level of coordination between the resistance forces in the entire region.’ Amin goes on to note the position ‘recently launched by the leaders of the resistance regarding the unity of the arenas…the aim of which is to raise resistance activity inside Palestine to a level that opens the door to a comprehensive uprising.’ 

The ‘resistance,’ according to Ibrahim Amin, ‘realizes that direct, qualitative action on the entire area of historical Palestine represents the starting point for the complete liberation project.’

From this point of view, Amin contends that the killing of al-Aswad reflected an Israeli desire to respond to the Megiddo ‘operation’ and the evidence it indicated of the aforementioned ‘unity of the arenas.’

Israel’s aim, Amin suggests, was to strengthen deterrence, while avoiding ‘uncontrolled escalation’ and a deterioration to a general conflict.  The choice of the target – a Palestinian from an Iran and Hizballah backed organization, and the location – Syria rather than Lebanon – was calibrated in order to achieve this precise effect, the al-Akhbar editor proposes. 

The approach to Ramadan this year, Amin continues, is distinguished by the presence of what he refers to as an ‘insane government’ in Israel, and a resulting ‘internal crisis in the occupying entity in an unprecedented manner, amid the escalation of regional dangers to Israel, especially from Iran and the northern front.’ 

‘Everyone’, Amin concludes, ‘is waiting for different days in the coming Ramadan, and first and foremost the enemy, who does not desist even for an hour from the crimes of killing and assassination.’ 

Ibrahim al-Amin’s editorial, it is worth noting, is primarily a response to a somewhat dispiriting event for his readers and patrons – namely the successful penetration as he perceives it of his side’s territory by its enemies, and the targeted assassination of a senior operative.  Nevertheless, the opinions expressed in it reflect a widespread stance reflected in other statements by leaders and mouthpieces of the pro-Iran regional alliance.  The specific and common elements are the conviction that their cause is served by the internal disunity and strife in Israel, and the desire to link the evident renewed desire for confrontation in the West Bank with the capabilities and capacities of Iran and its clients. 

Recent statements by Nasrallah himself, and by senior Hamas military officials including Marwan Issa and Saleh al Arouri have followed along similar lines. 

A series of meetings of senior officials of Hizballah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad over the past week, meanwhile,  further suggest at least a desire to project an image of coordination. 

According to a statement issued by Hizballah’s press office on Sunday, Nasrallah met recently with a delegation led by Saleh al Arouri of Hamas.  The discussion, according to the statement,  centered on “the latest developments in occupied Palestine, especially the resistance in the West Bank and Jerusalem.” 

Arouri is the most senior military operative of Hamas currently active on the external front.  Formerly based in Turkey, he has claimed responsibility for organizing the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli Jewish teenagers which led to Operation Protective Edge in 2014. 

Nasrallah also met last Saturday with Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhala, and an accompanying delegation.  Nasrallah and al-Nakhala agreed to ‘continue consultation and coordination with a view to enhancing the resistance against Israel,” according to a statement subsequently released by Islamic Jihad. 

How should all this be interpreted?  Firstly, it should be noted that expressions of bellicose self-confidence on the part of this camp, sometimes with only glancing resemblances to reality, are not a new development. 

A narrative according to which the violence of May 2021 represented the birth of a new paradigm in the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians is prevalent here.  What Israelis refer to as Operation ‘Guardian of the Walls’ is termed by Hizballah and its allies the ‘Saif al-Quds’ (Sword of Jerusalem) battle. 

Robert Inlakesh, writing at the pro-Hizballah al-Mayadeen media website in May 2022, characterized the supposed new developments of this period in the following terms:  ‘the tactics used by the armed groups, such as; slowly revealing new weapons technology, striking everywhere inside the 1948 territories, putting Israeli airports on temporary lockdown and controlling the course of the battle, all showed the entire region the weaknesses of “Tel Aviv”.

The latest statements by Nasrallah and Issa, and al-Amin’s editorial, should be seen as coming from within this perception.  A cooler glance at the situation, however, would require an acknowledgement that even in 2021, the hoped for mass mobilization of Palestinians in support of a new intifada did not take place.  Nor did it happen in the Ramadan of 2022, despite the uptick in violence.  Nor has it happened so far this year, despite the very significant increase in violence in the West Bank since the start of 2023.

The key question, however, is not the accuracy of the perceptions revealed in al-Amin’s editorial and Inlakesh’s somewhat overheated prose. Rather, the key matter is the extent to which those who publicly profess these views, especially among the decisionmakers in that camp, are themselves genuinely convinced by them.  Rhetoric, after all, can play a compensatory and comforting role,. It can divert attention from a more cautious and pragmatic praxis.  In the Arab world, famously, it very often fulfils this function. Is that the case here? Or is something more substantive being revealed?  

This takes us back to the incident in Megiddo.  All the relevant information is not publicly available. But here is what is known: the forces that control the Lebanese side of the Israel-Lebanon border, ie Hizballah and its Iranian masters, chose to initiate or permit the launching of an operation involving the use of sophisticated military technology which if successfully employed would have resulted in an act of terror involving mass casualties.  Such an action would undoubtedly have brought forth a major Israeli response.  That they carried out or sanctioned such an operation would seem to indicate that the assessment outlined in Ibrahim al-Amin’s editorial following the assassination of Ali Ramzi al-Aswad does indeed reflect the view adhered to by key individuals in the highest echelons of Hizballah and among the Iranian forces which stand behind it. This ought to be a matter of note for all those concerned with Israel’s security, and with the maintenance of its deterrence.   

The Australian, 3/2

The visit to Israel by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken this week showcased the paradoxical position in which Israel currently finds itself.  While Jerusalem’s long held positions vis a vis the danger represented by Iran have received a very significant boost on the global stage over the past year, stark internal divisions and growing security challenges closer to home cast dark shadows. 

Washington clearly finds it impossible to ignore the direction of events in this corner of the Middle East, despite the current US focus on the Russia-Ukraine war, and the long term American pivot toward the Asia-Pacific region as the crucial center of global strategic affairs.

The Blinken visit followed a series of dramatic developments.  A raid on a drone facility in the Iranian city of Isfahan on January 28,  carried out by Israel according to statements by US intelligence officials, reflected the growing scope, and growing effectiveness of Israel’s ‘shadow war’ against the Islamist regime in Tehran.  Once, Israel’s campaign on Iranian soil focused narrowly on the country’s nuclear program.  During the prime ministership of Naftali Bennett, it became apparent that the focus had widened, and that Israel now had both the capacity and the desire to strike at will at a far wider bank of targets inside Iran. The list now included officials engaged in Iran’s broader program of influence-building and subversion across the Middle East. It also, as reflected in the most recent action, includes Iran’s drone and missile programs. 

The apparent use of quadcopters in the raid suggests that it was carried out by individuals located on Iranian soil, and in fairly close proximity to the facility itself.  This is a further indication that Israel appears to have established a network within Iran, which it can activate and then stand down at will, under the noses of the authorities. 

A raid the following day by unidentified aircraft on a convoy of trucks carrying Iranian weapons across the Albukamal border crossing between Iraq and Syria indicates that in addition to actions on Iranian soil, Israel is continuing to monitor and where required target Tehran’s efforts to supply its various proxies and franchises in Syria and Lebanon. 

Global events with regard to Iran are moving in Israel’s direction.  Once western diplomats would listen sympathetically to Israel’s expressions of concern, while privately concluding that this was not their country’s problem.  Not any more. Iran’s assistance to and support of the Russian war effort in Ukraine, and the emergent strategic axis which it reflects, have changed this picture.  Efforts to ban the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in the EU and the UK showcase the extent to which Israel’s long war against the Iranian regime is increasingly located within the western consensus.   

Unsurprisingly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his remarks following his meeting with Secretary Blinken on Monday, chose to focus on this issue.  He noted that in the recent period, ‘many in the international community – I would say most of the international community – have seen the true face of Iran.’  Blinken, too, acknowledged this process and its cause, confirming the US and Israel’s  ‘deepening cooperation to confront and counter Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region and beyond.  Just as Iran has long supported terrorists that attack Israelis and others, the regime is now providing drones that Russia is using to kill innocent Ukrainian civilians.’ 

The efficacy of Israel’s long arm against Iran, however, was not the only generator of Israel-related headlines over recent weeks. Nor, evidently, was it the main focus of the US Secretary of State’s visit. 

Blinken opened his remarks by expressing condolences ‘for the seven Israelis who were killed in the horrific terrorist attack early this week outside their synagogue.’  The attack in Neve Yaakov in Jerusalem on January 27, in which seven Israelis were killed, was the latest incident in a significant uptick in violence over the last two years to which the Israeli authorities have struggled to find a response.  The attack was the bloodiest to take place in Jerusalem since 2008.  Overall, 2022 brought the largest death toll in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the dying days of the Second Intifada, in 2005. 

The current violence differs from previous rounds in significant ways.  The perpetrators are for the most part not dispatched by any organization.  Some of them (perpetrators of attacks in Jerusalem, Hadera and Beersheba over the last year) identified with the ideas of the Islamic State organization.  Others are connected to a loose nexus of militants in the northern West Bank, centered around the cities of Jenin and Nablus.  For the most part, their radicalization takes place online or via their immediate milieu, leaving no obvious organizational chain which the authorities can trace and unravel.  It is nearly twenty years since the Second Intifada ended. (it is usually dated 2000-4). Three thousand Palestinians and over a thousand Israelis were killed during that period.  Since then, a kind of quiet has largely prevailed.  This period appears to be drawing to a close.  The underlying causes of the conflict remain nowhere close to resolution, with no diplomatic process on the horizon. 

Blinken, on a number of occasions during his visit, reiterated US support for a two state solution as the only way of resolving the conflict.  This call, to both Israeli and Palestinian ears, seems increasingly to bear little connection to the observable reality. 

Meanwhile, over the last two years, the month of Ramadan has witnessed a sharp uptick in violence.  This year, Ramadan is due to commence on March 22.  The increased religious focus of this month, and perceived threats to the al-Aqsa mosque appear to be the factors that serve to galvanise the politically unaffiliated youths who carry out the attacks.  The presence of a far-right radical, Itamar Ben-Gvir, serving as Israel’s National Security Minister, may further affect the situation in as yet unpredictable ways. 

Ben-Gvir’s presence in government reflects the second main focus of Blinken’s visit, namely, obvious US concern at the direction of events within Israel itself.

Israel is today starkly  divided on the issue of proposed judicial reform.  The country’s ‘activist’ Supreme court, and the belief that its rulings reflect a liberal political bias, is a long standing focus of anger among significant parts of the Israeli right.  The current proposed reform is set to sharply reduce the powers of the court.  According to the provisions of the proposed reform, the court’s powers of judicial review will be significantly reduced.  The Knesset (parliament) will be able to overturn a court decision to nullify a law by a simple majority vote.  ‘Unreasonableness’ as a grounds for reviewing administrative decisions will be abolished.  The process by which judges are appointed will be changed, giving a greater role to the executive and legislature and the role of the attorney general will be reduced. 

But this issue has expanded beyond its specifics, and has come to mark the faultlines of a deep and profound division in Israeli society. A significant part of Israel’s secular middle class looks at the make-up of the current government, and notes that 32 of the 64 parliament members belong to religious or ultra-Orthodox factions, including the firebrands Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.  They fear a transformation of their country into something unrecognizable, with the judicial reforms as merely the first step.  Large demonstrations by this public have taken place in recent days, in protest against the proposals.

Blinken, in his public remarks, appeared to acknowledge their concerns. The Secretary of State noted, pointedly, that ‘building consensus for new proposals is the most effective way to ensure they’re embraced and that they endure,’ while suggesting on a number of occasions that ‘shared interests and shared values’ underlay the bond and alliance between the US and Israel.’  Blinken made a point of seeking out and meeting with Israeli civil society organizations, devoting a number of hours to dialogue with them.  The point he was making was clear, though tactfully made (at least publicly).  The US is concerned at the direction of events in Israel.  Washington wants minimum problems in the Middle East, while it focuses elsewhere.

Some commentators have remarked that internal discord in Israel is now at its greatest height since the 1990s. The shadow war with Iran continues to register its successes.  The West Bank simmers on.  Continued success against external challenges, though, must ultimately be based on maintaining a certain required level of internal cohesion.  

Jerusalem Post, 23/12

Without US pushback, Turkish-Russian cooperation may deliver victory in Syria to Moscow-Tehran axis

Since 2019, the Syrian situation has been largely at stalemate, with authority divided between three de facto enclaves, each dependent on the sponsorship of outside powers.  The Assad regime, guaranteed by Russia and Iran, controls around 60-65% of Syria’s territory, including the coastline and the main cities.  The US-backed, Kurdish dominated Syrian Democratic Forces hold most of the area east of the Euphrates, comprising roughly 30% of Syria’s area.  Turkey, in partnership with the self-styled ‘Syrian National Army,’  (the remnants of the Sunni Islamist rebellion, remustered under Turkish auspices) and with the jihadi Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, controls an area in the north west comprising around 10% of Syrian territory. 

This de facto partition has mostly held since early 2018.  Turkey shifted the balance somewhat in October-November 2019, with a ground incursion east of the Euphrates. This resulted in the establishment of an enclave of Turkish controlled territory biting into the Kurdish controlled area, and in the deployment of regime and Russian forces east of the Euphrates in order to deter further Turkish advances.  Since then, the military situation on the ground has been static, the broader question of Syria’s future unresolved. 

There are currently indications of renewed movement.   Specifically, Turkish President Recep Tayepp Erdogan has been carrying out an air campaign against targets in the Kurdish/US area since November 20^th. The Turkish president has already threatened a ground incursion, with the intention of pushing the Kurdish forces back 30km from the border and conquering three towns, Tal Rifaat, Manbij and Kobani.  Kurdish sources told the Jerusalem Post that the Syrian Kurdish leadership had expected the invasion in late November.  Its postponement appears to be the result of both American and Russian representations to and pressure on Ankara.  Sources suggest, however, that the danger has not yet passed. 

Alongside the threats of invasion, Erdogan appears to now be embarked on a course of diplomacy.  On Thursday December 15, the Turkish President expressed his desire for a three way meeting between himself, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar Assad.  “Let us get together as the leaders. I offered this to Mr. Putin and he received it positively. Thus, a series of contacts would be launched… “We want to take a tripartite step as Syria-Turkey-Russia,” the Turkish president told reporters, on his way back from a trip to Turkmenistan, as reported in Al-Monitor.  The statements followed talks in Istanbul on December 8-9 between the Turkish and Russian deputy foreign ministers, and a phone conversation between Putin and Erdogan on December 11. 

This is a far cry from the Erdogan of a decade ago.  Turkey emerged as the first and most determined supporter of the Islamist insurgents who sought to destroy the Assad regime.  In 2012, in the early days of the insurgency, Erdogan effectively opened the border to the rebels, allowing them to ferry weaponry and supplies into Syria.  Now, as the last protector of what is left of the revolt, the Turkish leader appears to be pursuing a very different goal, namely, rapprochement with the Assad regime, under Russian auspices. 

The Turkish leader’s stance indicates that while he may have for the moment abandoned his ambition to stand at the head of a group of Sunni Islamist regional states, this is not leading him to return to a pro-US regional policy.  Rather, he appears to be seeking to draw closer to Russia, in order to further weaken and eventually nullify the Kurdish led entity in eastern Syria.  Erdogan considers that this body, aligned with the US in its fight against ISIS, is a front for the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party), with which Turkey has been at war since 1984.  His efforts since 2015, when it became clear that the rebellion was not going to defeat Assad, have been mainly directed towards seeking the destruction of the Kurdish led area. 

In this regard, Turkey finds natural partners in Russia and Assad.  Assad wants to reassert his nominal control over the entirety of Syria. Russia supports this goal too, as does its ally Iran, and both would like to see the departure of the US troops currently guaranteeing the continued existence of the Kurdish led enclave. 

The Kurdish area, formally known as the Autonomous Administration of north east Syria, has been gradually whittled away by Turkey in three military operations since 2016.  In 2019, the Turkish incursion required the Kurds to invite the regime and Russians into their area to prevent a further Turkish advance.  If forced to choose between the Turks or Assad, the Syrian Kurds will, unsurprisingly, opt for Assad.  For Erdogan, this raises the attractive proposition of using the Assad regime as a kind of anvil for the Turkish hammer, between which the Syrian Kurds will be crushed. 

In 2019, regime forces did not attempt to reimpose Assad’s political authority east of the Euphrates.  Contrary to some predictions, the regime at that time satisfied itself with beefing up its military presence on the border only.    But the episode served to further erode the area of control and authority of the AANES.  It appears that this pattern is to Erdogan’s liking: threats of Turkish action necessitate closer links between the Kurds and the regime, leading to the further weakening of the Kurds.  The next episode of this dynamic, under Russian auspices, appears to be under way. 

Russia’s proposals at this stage appear to resemble the methods used by Moscow to whittle away at rebel controlled areas five years ago.  Moscow is suggesting that the SDF fighters withdraw from Kobani and Manbij, leaving only Kurdish paramilitary police ‘Asayish’ forces which would then come under regime command.  The Kurds, according to al-Monitor, have accepted these demands. Turkey is now demanding additional Kurdish concessions. 

The choreography of all this seems fairly clear.  The key player absent in the dynamic, meanwhile, is the United States.  It is the US which guarantees the continued existence of the AANES area.  It does so, however, without a political commitment of any kind.  Relations are officially limited to cooperation in the ongoing battle against Islamic State.  US interlocutors make clear to the Kurdish leadership that they will not necessarily be in Syria for the long term. The US therefore is not opposed to the negotiations between the AANES and the Assad regime. 

This ‘hands off’ position of the US is likely to doom the Syrian Kurds to the continued slow erosion of their area of control.  The absence of a clear US commitment in Syria may reflect a view which sees this arena as a backwater, of little strategic relevance at the present time.  If so, this view is mistaken.  Syria is one front for a broader, coalescing alliance between Moscow and Teheran, which takes in also the battlefields of Ukraine, and the domestic turmoil in Iran (Moscow, according to a recent report in Iran International, is advising and assisting the Iranians in the suppression of the protests).  The US guaranteed enclave is important strategic real estate which gives the opposing side in this alliance a presence in Syria and an ability to oppose, frustrate or block and contain the ambitions of Moscow and Tehran.  Turkey is seeking to position itself midway between the sides, gaining advantage from both.  The problem may be that strategic thinking on the pro-US side has yet to catch up with the emergent reality in this context.  Until it does, the advantage will be with the Russian-Iranian side, as it moves with Turkish cooperation towards an endgame intended to deliver it strategic victory in the Syrian arena. 

Jerusalem Post, 16/12

“About the events of the last two months – what happened with Jina Amini was like putting a spark on a pile of TNT, which has now exploded,” Hussein Yazdanpana tells me. “We will not accept what has happened to the Kurds. We see what happened to this girl as an insult to our dignity and our honor.  And we are now taking part in the uprising against the Iranian regime” 

Yazdanpana is the leader of the Kurdish Freedom Party (PAK – Parti Azadi K), one of three Iranian Kurdish organizations targeted by the missiles and drones of the Teheran regime in recent months.  We are talking in a small hut located at the movement’s headquarters in Pirde, Kirkuk Province, in northern Iraq, close to the place where the missiles landed. 

In mid-November, the Jerusalem Post visited all three of the targeted areas, and conducted interviews with leaders and activists of the organizations targeted.  Our presence in these areas also enabled us to meet with and interview young Iranians who had taken part in the current protests, before being identified by the Iranian security services and fleeing the country.  At a time when the Iranian authorities are doing their best to block access to the country, and to stifle the voices of those engaged in revolt against it, this provided a valuable window both on what is going on in Iran, and on the sentiments, views and motivations of those involved in the protests.   

The PAK stands out in two ways among the cluster of small, armed Kurdish organizations gathered along the Iraq-Iran border – for the clarity and unambiguous nature of its rhetoric and its demands, and for its emphasis on military activity and struggle.  Regarding the former, the organization openly calls for the establishment of a sovereign Kurdish state on the lands that the Iranian Kurds call ‘Rojhelat.’ 

Other Kurdish groups tend to restrict themselves to demands for autonomy within a federal Iran, or various other formulations.  Regarding the latter, the movement is reknowned for its actions both during the war against ISIS and, in particular, during the Iraqi Kurds’ desperate defense against the pro-Iran Shia militias after the failed Kurdish independence bid in September, 2014.  On that occasion, the movement is credited for stopping the advance of the militias towards the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Erbil, at the Alton Kopri bridge, which links Kirkuk and Erbil provinces. 

Formed in 2006, the PAK, like the other targeted groups, is a small organization, numbering around 1000 fighters, with an larger network of supporters inside and outside Iran. 

The base at Pirde was attacked by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on September 28, shortly after the outbreak of the current uprisjng against the regime in Tehran.  Six members of the movement were killed on that occasion.   The bases of two other Iranian Kurdish groups, Komala and the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (PDKI) were also targeted.  At total of eighteen people died in the attacks. 

The Iranian regime accuses the PAK and the other organizations of carrying out ‘armed attacks’ against regime security forces, and of fomenting the current demonstrations and protests.  IRGC Commander Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour was quoted by the IRGC-associated Tasnim channel as  saying that that the attacks will continue until “the complete disarmament of the anti-Iranian and separatist terrorist groups”. 

Yazdanpana, and leaders of the other two organizations dismiss the accusations of ‘armed attacks’, while freely admitting to active support for the uprising.  “As PAK,” he tells me, “ we are calling for the continuance and expansion of the protests. This is what we’re working on.  What is happening now is not criticism of the government.  We are demanding the end of the regime. Iran’s bombardments just motivate us more.”

On the issue of armed action, the PAK leader told me that “we want to continue and expand the civil way.  But we should be prepared also and should not hesitate to protect ourselves.” 

But alongside the determination, there is a clear frustration at the failure of western countries to respond adequately to Iranian aggression, and more broadly, at what the PAK leader identifies as a more general failure to grasp the nature of the Iranian regime and its regional intentions. 

“Our fighters fought ISIS, and like the Ukrainians, we’re friends of the US, and right now we’re under Iranian bombardment and are being killed.  How can the international community keep silent?  You remember when Hizballah was bombing Israel? How do they come to have such weapons? Its not Hizballah, its Iran which is the source.  You have to deal with the source of the weapons. 

We’re not living in the age of empires, but Iran is an imperial state.  Iran wants to control the Sinjar mountains so as to put its missiles within range of Tel Aviv.  It has bombed Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It has destroyed Yemen.  So how can we keep silent? 

They have brought their militias into Iran.  The Fatemiyoun, Zeinabyoun and so on (Afghan and Pakistani Shia militias) and they’re using them against the demonstrators.  They have permission to open fire, wherever they want. 

Iran must be faced with force.  With force you can change it.  But only in this way.”

On the matter of Kurdish statehood, the PAK leader is unequivocal.  “If Israel didn’t have its own state, there would be another Holocaust.  So having a state is the only way to guarantee the safety and sovereignty of the nation.  I want a free and independent Kurdish state.  But of course, the people themselves must decide this.”

Why is Iran targeting the Iranian Kurdish organizations?

The PAK, PDKI and Komala are organizations raised against the Islamist regime in Tehran, and are committed to its downfall. At the same time, these are all small organizations, with limited reach.  Members of all three organizations in conversation with the Jerusalem Post noted their active involvement in the protests. Kawthar Fatahi, a leading Komala activist, said that her movement maintains “illegal hospitals,’” and  “We pay doctors to bring aid to wounded people.  We pay the families of wounded people.  We assist the movement a lot, but not via armed action.” 

But while the organizations are undoubtedly engaged in active support for the uprising, no-one, including the organizations themselves, claims that they are in control of, or leading the demonstrations.  Rather, the protests in the main involve very young people, many of them under 20 years old, and few over 25.  Why then does the regime appear to be paying such disproportionate attention to the Iranian Kurdish organizations in the border area?

Many of the activists interviewed by the Jerusalem Post in the border area attribute the apparently disproportionate attention given to the organizations to a desire by the regime to present the civil uprising against it as a military insurgency.  This depiction would then be the prelude to a much harsher crackdown on the protests, presented as a response to a national security threat. 

As one official of the PDKI put it, in conversation with the Jerusalem Post at the organization’s Koya headquarters, “the regime want to make it into a military battle with us.  But we see that this would be in the interests of the regime, so we try to prevent that.  A military confrontation would enable them to cause mass casualties and end the demonstrations.  So we are trying to educate people so as to avoid this.” 

“They attack us because they are feeling weak.  The attacks also show the weakness of Iraqi sovereignty.  Iran is trying to look strong when actually they are very weak.  What’s happening now is unprecedented, in terms of the time it has continued.  People are no longer willing to accept the regime.  Its getting stronger day by day.” 

Conversations with protestors

On November 14, in the course of our visit to the bases of the Iranian Kurdish organizations, Iran launched an additional missile and drone attack.  The headquarters of the PDKI and Komala were targeted.  Three people were killed at the PDKI base in Koya.  We were at the base of the PAK on that day.  As a precaution, the base was evacuated, and the fighters deployed in the surrounding hills.  In the following tense hours, we were able to speak to a number of people who had taken part in the protests in Iran, before making their way across the mountains to northern Iraq, to avoid arrest by the regime.  

Mafriz, aged 19, from Sine, took part in the demonstrations for the first two weeks.  She describes a situation of open confrontation far exceeding the generally reported picture of demonstrations by young women for the rescinding of compulsory hijab laws. 

“The regime attacked us with live bullets.  People are injured but they can’t go to a pharmacy or hospital.  We had to take casualties to private houses.  Men, women, even children, whole families took part in the demonstrations.” 

After two weeks, a surveillance camera placed outside a shop identified Mafriz, and the authorities contacted her family, asking her to report to the local offices of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security.  At this point, she decided to leave.  The PAK has a strong presence in Sine, and Mafriz’s family made contact with the organize, to help her leave. 

“After I was threatened (by the regime),” she tells the Jerusalem Post, “I went to Sardasht.  From there I was able to walk for 3 days with smugglers and then to get to Iraq.  I was terrified during the trip across the mountains.  I thought the smugglers might sell me.  Then after I came here, they sent me the number of the PAK.  And I contacted them and came here.” 

Rezan, 25, also from Sine, was arrested on the fourth demonstration in which she participated, and was then rescued from arrest by the demonstrators themselves.  “Most participants in the demonstrations are 15-20 years old, coming from families that have been oppressed.  Poor economic conditions, political instability, no one feels safe, and that makes people come out. 

The regime has become more aggressive, entering peoples’ houses and so on, and I believe it will continue to intensify.  The regime is using hunting guns, live bullets, teargas, sticks and baton rounds.  Also the regime police and intelligence use fake ambulances to arrest people.  So wounded people are being treated in their homes rather than in hospital.” 

“We have to respond to the regime bullet with bullet,” she concludes, “so we need the support of the international community for this, to go back to our lands and to take revenge for all the innocent people who have been killed.” And, on learning where we are from, “Israel should keep on punishing the regime.  As much as you can.” 

Hussein, 27, a construction worker from Saqqez, took part in the demonstrations that launched the current uprising, following the death of Mahsa Jina Amini, before escaping with his wife and young won to Iraq. 

“I’m a painter and decorator, an ordinary worker.  We lived in poor conditions, like thousands of other young people in Iran.  The events surrounding Jina’s death gave us an opportunity, to go to the streets, mzke a change, and demonstrate.  I went with four of my friends.  Two have them have now been arrested and disappeared.  The others were injured.  I was recognized and the authorities went to my parents’ home. They took my sister’s phone and called me.  And when I answered, the coice told me ‘come to us, you son of a bitch. So I got some friends to bring my family to me. And we came here.”

Hussein and his family are staying with the PAK in Pirde because he fears the presence of Iranian sleeper cells in the cities, in Erbil, or Suleimania.  The vulnerability of Iraqi Kurdistan to Iranian intelligence penetration and the fears of Iranians present in this area is an under-reported part of this story. 

“They killed Musa Babakhani, in Erbil,” Hussein reminds me, when I ask whether such precautions are necessary.  Babakhani, a leading activist in the PDKI, was murdered in an Erbil hotel room in August, 2021, by agents of the Iranian regime. 

These testimonies, gathered as we waited in the mountains for the all clear to be given, reflect earlier conversations with activists and participants in the Iranian protests.  The details matter.  The issue of the abuse by the authorities of medical care, in order to apprehend demonstrators came up again and again.  And as we saw in the statements of Kawthar Fatahi of Komala, it is in this area that the Kurdish organizations are most practically engaged, creating an independent, rudimentary medical infrastructure that enables participants when injured to avoid the public hospitals and the authorities. 

Another matter which surfaced in a number of conversations was the issue of sexual abuse of demonstrators in the hands of the authorities.  Though somewhat taboo in the conservative environment of Iran, claims of this kind surfaced in several of our conversations and the issue is worthy of greater attention and investigation. 

At the Komala base in Zergwez, Rojda, 22, from Saqqez, gave a vivid account of the first moments of the uprising.  “When we heard that Jina had been killed, and that the next day the regime was preparing to bury her, in darkness, at 4am, all the Saqqez people went down to block the streets leading to the cemeteries. 

The police came and began to push people back.  The killing of Jina was so brutal. Saqqez people knew that she was a good person, who did nothing to deserve this.  It was not acceptable.  The police and intelligence tried to threaten us as the womens’ demonstration began to spread.  The next day, the women came to the streets again, to block the road, with the men behind them.  Then the police began to open fire, with ‘hunting guns.’

After 4 days in the demonstrations, I was doing first aid.  They said I had to come to the ‘Etillat’ (intelligence) station.  Then I decided to leave, and I came across the mountains. I’m optimistic that the regime will fall soon, because of the anger of the people that I saw on the demonstrations.  Young women, 19 and 20 years old. Despite the threat, the fear has gone.  For that reason, I’m optimistic that the regime will fall soon.”

The Road Ahead

The latest news from Iran suggests a sharp intensification of regime tactics.  Three months in, the regime has evidently decided that ongoing containment is no longer an option.  Esmail Ghaani, commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Qods Force, was in Iraq last week for a  two day visit.  While there, Ghaani threatened Iraqi and Kurdish officials with an Iranian ground military operation, unless the Iranian Kurdish organizations along the border were disarmed.  Ghaani’s visit came a day after the November 14th attacks on Koya. Whether or not a ground incursion takes place, no one expects that the November 22 missile and suicide drone attacks on the PAK will be the last. 

The first executions of protestors condemned for their participation in the demonstrations have begun.  On Thursday, according to BBC Monitoring,  the Iranian judiciary announced the  execution of Mohsen Shekari. He had been convicted of “waging war against God” for blocking a street and wounding a member of the Basij. 11 others arrested since the start of the uprising  await execution. 458 people have been killed so far in the Iranian regime’s response to the demonstrations, including 63 children and 29 women, according to Iranian human rights organizations. The protests continue.   

Jerusalem Post, 9/12

“The problem is not only the hijab.  This is a symbol.  The Iranian regime is intent on controlling how women live.  And women are saying ‘I am human and I have a right to live.’ This time its different.” 

Kawthar Fatahi, 33, a former teacher from Bukan in Iran’s Western Azerbaijan Province, is now a leading activist and organizer for the Iranian Kurdish Komala party. We are sitting in her office at the movement’s HQ in Zergwez, Suleimania Province, northern Iraq, about 50 km from the Iraq-Iran border.  The base was the target of an Iranian drone and missile attack on September 28^th.  “I thought it was a motorcycle, at first” she tells me, “A horrible, weak, buzzing sound. But it was a suicide drone.  You could see it in the sky, but you didn’t know where it was going to land.”

The countryside in the Iraq-Iran border area is green, verdant and beautiful, in contrast to the desert landscapes a little further west. But two days after our conversation, the base will be targeted again. Fatahi’s office is located in one of the buildings struck by the drones. 

In quiet and measured tones, she describes the unexpected outbreak of the uprising that followed calls by Iranian Kurdish organizations, including her own, for protests following the killing on September 16 of Mahsa Jina Amini for improper wearing of her compulsory hijab. 

“Initially I wasn’t too optimistic.  I thought it might be limited to Kurdistan.  But now I think its different,’ she says.  “Nobody thought it would be this big, because a week before in Mariwan, another girl was killed and there were protests – but only in Mariwan. No one else supported them.  Then the Kurdish parties called a strike, which was completely successful.  So they called the protests.  ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi.’  (Women, life, freedom – a main slogan of the uprising).  And then a few days later we heard this Kurdish slogan in Tehran.” 

She is concerned, nevertheless, at the limited base of support for the revolt.  “It remains only Generation Z.  15-25 year olds. There is a need for older people to come into the protests. Everyone decided that they don’t want the regime. But people are scared.” The absence of a clear leadership, much remarked upon in western analyses of the uprising, is an issue too. 

“Who are the alternative to the regime? Its still not obvious…People in Iran are a little afraid of charisma. Because this is how Khomeini was.  They saw his face in the moon, you know? They insist that they don’t need a charismatic leader, that we will not be deceived again. We need a system, they say.  A democratic system.”

“Some among the Turks (ie Azeri Iranians) and the Persians believe in the king, the Shah.  But even they don’t want him to be king, but that he should take power, a temporary, government. And then a referendum.”

“They aren’t frightened that something could be worse than the current regime – because nothing could be worse than the current regime.”

The base at Zergwez is host to young men and women who took part in the current uprising, and who had to hurriedly leave Iran after the authorities sought to apprehend them.  Fatahi herself left Iran for similar reasons some years before the current events.  After becoming involved in ‘the social movement, the green movement,’  she was summoned by the IRGC for interrogation, and with the help of the Komala organization fled across the Zagros mountains to Iraqi Kurdistan. 

“When you grow up in Iran, as a woman, and especially as a Kurdish woman, you notice that things are not normal, that you have no place,” she tells me.  “So you think about it.  Why don’t I have basic rights? We have to wear a hijab from the first days.  And step by step you start to think that you’re nothing.  How to walk, how to sit, how to eat.  It was forbidden for women to eat in the street.” 

Komala itself, along with two other Iranian Kurdish movements – the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (PDKI) and the Kurdish Freedom Party (PAK), have been the targets of Iranian missile and drone attacks on three occasions since the outbreak of the uprising in mid-September.  A total of 21 people have been killed in these attacks.  Iranian regime media maintains a constant drumbeat of accusations, according to which these organizations are smuggling weaponry across the border to the protestors, and seeking to foment an armed insurgency.   Tasnim, for example, a channel associated with the IRGC, reported on November 22 that the armed strikes on the  ‘‘Iraqi-based Komala and Democrat terrorist groups came after illegal entry by these groups’ armed teams into the Iranian border cities.’

Kawthar Fatahi, and other officials of Komala, PDKI and PAK interviewed by the Jerusalem Post in Iraqi Kurdistan in mid-November dismiss these accusations.  It is clear from these interviews that the Kurdish organizations are not leading the current protests, nor do they claim to be doing so.  They are, however, involved in activities intended to assist the uprising. 

“We have ‘illegal hospitals,’” says Fatahi.  “We pay doctors to bring aid to wounded people.  We pay the families of wounded people.  We assist the movement a lot, but not via armed action.” 

All three of these movements have light weaponry, including machine guns and RPGs, as this author witnessed on their bases.  The demonstrators inside Iran, meanwhile, are being killed daily.  Over 450 people have now died.  The organizations, surely, are faced with a dilemma.  Why not use the available weaponry in order to defend the protestors.  And if not now, when, so to speak.  I put this question to Fatahi. 

“People do call on us to come inside, yes.  But we think its not yet the time,” she replies.  “The regime creates fake scenarios, saying that people from Komala come in with bombs and so on, supported by the US and Israel.  We now have four fighters in jail, who’ve been forced to say ‘we’re from Komala, we trained with Israel, to come and make explosions.’ But its all fake. 

The revolution in 1979 took one year.  We need the big cities, we need Teheran.  Its not yet the time.  We shouldn’t give the regime excuses.  We should go step by step.” 

As of now, the demonstrations are continuing, and regime tactics are producing violence in response.  A number of IRGC personnel have been killed by the protestors, in both Kurdistan and Sistan Baluchestan Province.  The airstrikes on Iranian Kurdish positions across the border are accompanied by increasing use of live ammunition against the protests.  In Iranian Kurdistan this week, another of the periodic general strikes took place, and was widely observed. 

Kawthar Fatahi, from her office in Zergwez, next to where the drone struck, is cautiously optimistic.  “The demonstrations need to be continuous.  The Iranian regime is very weak now.  I know many people who were senior in the regime, in the IRGC, and who have stopped working with them.  If the demonstrations continue, and larger numbers come to the revolution, and the strikes continue and spread, I think that step by step, the regime will begin to lose control.  I think it’s going to happen.”