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Israel on edge as Hezbollah, Iran move on Golan Heights

BEIRUT — A recent surprise offensive against Syrian rebels in southern Syria, apparently directed by Iran, may have more to do with preparing a new front against Israel along the Golan Heights and deterring Jordan than with crushing armed opposition to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Launched on Feb. 9, the offensive is intended to push rebel forces in the Quneitra and Deraa provinces back toward the Jordanian border. If it succeeds, the effort would enable Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shia group, to extend its front line with Israel from the Mediterranean coast to the Yarmouk River on the Syria-Jordan border, a distance of 114 miles. But Israel has warned that it will not tolerate Iran and Hezbollah building a military front in the Golan, its quietest border since the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, despite the ongoing Israeli occupation of the Syrian territory. In an apparent signal of that resolve, Israel last month staged a rare missile strike against a Hezbollah convoy in the Golan.

“It seems the old equation is changing,” said Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, D.C. “Since 1973, Syria kept the Golan quiet while activating south Lebanon with Iranian help. Now the Iranians and Hezbollah have quieted south Lebanon and are activating the Golan front under the cover of the Syrian war.”

But the anti-rebel offensive may also be directed at Jordan, which has begun to play a more assertive role in Syria since Feb. 3, when the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) tortured to death a captured Jordanian fighter pilot. Since then, Jordanian aircraft have bombed ISIL targets in Syria, and Amman has reportedly been mulling a ground operation on Syrian territory — a prospect Damascus has vowed to oppose. A Jordanian-based CIA training program for pro-Western Syrian rebels is set to expand in the coming months.

“I think the regime wants to cut off at the knees any scope for the Americans and others to talk about some sort of joint Arab force to move against ISIS in Syria,” said Yezid Sayegh, a senior associate at the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center. “My sense is that they are trying to secure the south partly to tell the Jordanians and others that ‘Look, don’t think that we are feeble and unable to defend our territory. This isn’t a free playground for you to come in.’”

The attacking force, numbered at about 5,000, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reportedly combines Syrian army troops, members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, Shia fighters from Iraq and Afghanistan and loyalist, mainly Alawite, Syrian National Defense Force militiamen. Regional media reports say that Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, has inspected the southern front line in recent days, strengthening a belief that the operation is under Iran’s direction. One of Iran’s key objectives could be to regain Tel al-Hara, a 3,500-foot hill where a signals-intelligence facility built nine years ago to tap into Israeli communications was overrun by rebels in October.

The offensive made swift initial gains when it began on Feb. 9 with the seizure of the rebel-held towns of Deir al-Adas, Deir Maker and Danaji, but it has since slowed down in the face of fierce resistance, mainly from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra and its allies, as well as back-to-back snowstorms that have grounded the Syrian air force.

Another rebel group in the area, Jabhat Ansar al-Islam, announced on Thursday that it had launched a counteroffensive.

Israel has grown increasingly concerned over the past year about the impact of Syria’s civil war on the Golan Heights, the strategic volcanic plateau that looms over much of northern Israel and has been occupied by Israeli forces since the war of June 1967. Israel has been eyeing Hezbollah’s moves in the northern Golan, blaming the organization for a number of anonymous roadside bomb ambushes and rocket attacks. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained that Iran was attempting to “build an infrastructure of terror against Israel on the Golan Heights.”

What is Hezbollah?

Iran-backed movement is Israel's most formidable military challenger, a key ally of Assad and Lebanon's dominant force

The two sides came to blows last month when an Israeli drone strike killed senior Hezbollah men and an Iranian general on Jan. 18, and Hezbollah retaliated 10 days later by ambushing an Israeli army convoy. An investigation into the incident by the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon has revealed that the ambush was meticulously planned and skillfully executed. A team of Hezbollah fighters equipped with two Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles targeted the Israeli convoy from a distance of 3 miles, close to the limit of the 3.4-mile range of the laser-guided missiles. Because of the distance, the team fired the first two missiles simultaneously at the same target to double the chances of a hit. Both missiles struck the target, instantly killing the two occupants, an officer and a soldier.

“That both missiles hit is amazing shooting at that distance,” a military observer in southern Lebanon familiar with the U.N. investigation told Al Jazeera.

Now the Israelis fear that Hezbollah, with the backing of Iran, could be planning to deploy those skills along a new front line in the Golan Heights.

Since anti-Assad rebels gained ground in the Golan last year, Israel has developed a cautious relationship with some moderate factions. In October, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that Israel was providing humanitarian assistance to some rebel groups “on condition they don’t allow the more extremist organizations to reach the border.”

But the Syrian regime maintains that the Israeli assistance to rebel forces includes weapons and tactical intelligence. The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) reported in December that Israeli soldiers were spotted on numerous occasions talking to armed rebels through the security fence as well as individuals entering the Israeli side on foot. A source from an army that contributes to the UNDOF told Al Jazeera a truck was seen on Jan. 20 crossing to the Israeli side, where it spent 90 minutes before returning. The purpose of the visit was unknown, but it was the first time that the UNDOF spotted a vehicle crossing from rebel-held territory into the Israeli-held side of the Golan.

It is doubtful that Israel will seek to replicate the experience of southern Lebanon — where it armed, trained and funded the allied South Lebanon Army from the late 1970s until 2000 — but it’s equally unlikely to allow Iran and Hezbollah to consolidate a presence on the Golan.

The Iranian activity “has set off alarm bells” in Israel,” said Tabler, the Syria expert. “In the past it was just about Iran's nuclear program. Now it is something closer to home.”

Protesters waving Australian flags and carrying signs such as "Yes Australia. No Sharia" rallied around the country on Saturday in events organisers said were against Islamic extremism.

The "Reclaim Australia" events drew hundreds of supporters but also triggered counter-rallies from other groups who criticised them as racist and called for greater tolerance.

"We are pro-Australian values and anti-extreme Islam, but we're not anti-Muslim," Reclaim Australia spokeswoman Catherine Brennan told AFP, adding there was no racism behind the rallies, which she said had attracted people from diverse backgrounds.

"Since when is it being racist to love your country and to love the values and culture that you've been brought up with?"

Reclaim Australia's John Oliver told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the group was "not against any particular race or any particular religion".

"We're against the extremists of one particular religion," he said.

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Protesters attend a “Reclaim Australia” rally to oppose religious extremism in Sydney on April 4, 20 …

"I know in Sydney and Melbourne they've got Muslims already signed on to attend because they can see what's happening and they don't like what's happening."

In Sydney, hundreds braved the rain to rally in Martin Place, near the site of a deadly siege in which a lone gunman inspired by the Islamic State group took customers and staff hostage in a cafe in December. Two people, and the gunman, were killed in that incident.

"We have an extreme ideology called Islam which is starting to gain a foothold in our societies," one speaker told the event, in which one person held a home-made sign reading "No Islam. No Sharia. No Halal".

In Melbourne, tensions between competing protesters led to scuffles, with police on horseback forced to form a barrier between the groups, and paramedics treating several people for injuries.

Police arrested three people in Melbourne, while a man in Hobart was arrested for assault and two women were removed for breaching the peace at the Sydney rally.

In Queensland, former politician Pauline Hanson defended the rallies, which on its website Reclaim Australia said were against sharia law and the burqa and in support of gender equality.

"We have people here today who stand against racism. So do I," Hanson said.

However, rival protesters called the Reclaim Australia rallies anti-Muslim.

"Events like theirs incite racism and violence against Muslims," Clare Fester, who organised the counter-protest in Sydney, said in statement.

"Their attacks on Islam imply that anyone who is a Muslim is violent, supports terrorism and is anti-woman. This in an attempt to target all Muslims with classic racist stereotypes."

A vehicle belonging to Shi’ite militia fighters pulls the body of an Islamic State fighter, who was killed during clashes with Iraqi forces, in Tikrit April 1, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - On April 1, the city of Tikrit was liberated from the extremist group Islamic State. The Shi'ite-led central government and allied militias, after a month-long battle, had expelled the barbarous Sunni radicals.

Then, some of the liberators took revenge.

Near the charred, bullet-scarred government headquarters, two federal policemen flanked a suspected Islamic State fighter. Urged on by a furious mob, the two officers took out knives and repeatedly stabbed the man in the neck and slit his throat. The killing was witnessed by two Reuters correspondents.

The incident is now under investigation, interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan told Reuters.

Since its recapture two days ago, the Sunni city of Tikrit has been the scene of violence and looting. In addition to the killing of the extremist combatant, Reuters correspondents also saw a convoy of Shi'ite paramilitary fighters – the government's partners in liberating the city – drag a corpse through the streets behind their car.

Local officials said the mayhem continues. Two security officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday that dozens of homes had been torched in the city. They added that they had witnessed the looting of stores by Shi'ite militiamen.

Later Friday, Ahmed al-Kraim, head of the Salahuddin Provincial Council, told Reuters that mobs had burned down "hundreds of houses" and looted shops over the past two days. Government security forces, he said, were afraid to confront the mobs. Kraim said he left the city late Friday afternoon because the situation was spinning out of control.

"Our city was burnt in front of our eyes. We can't control what is going on," Kraim said.

Those reports could not be immediately confirmed.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Islamic State, an Al Qaeda offshoot that arose from the chaos in Iraq and Syria, slaughtered thousands and seized much of northern and central Iraq last year. The government offensive was meant not only to dislodge the group but also to transcend the fundamental divide in fractured Iraq: the enmity between the now-ruling Shi'ite majority and the country's formerly dominant Sunni minority.

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A member from the Iraqi security forces beats an Islamic State insurgent, who was captured in Tikrit …

Officials close to Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, a moderate Shi'ite, had described the Tikrit campaign as a chance to demonstrate his government's independence from one source of its power: Iraqi Shi'ite militias backed by Shi'ite Iran and advised by Iranian military officers. Sunnis deeply mistrust and fear these paramilitaries, accusing them of summary executions and vandalism. But Abadi has had to rely on the Shi'ite militias on the battlefield, as Iraq's regular military deserted en masse last summer in the Islamic State onslaught.

The militia groups spearheaded the start of the Tikrit assault in early March. But after two weeks of fighting, Abadi enforced a pause. Asserting his power over the Shi'ite militias, he called in U.S. airstrikes.

Now, the looting and violence in Tikrit threaten to tarnish Abadi's victory. It risks signaling to Sunni Iraqis that the central government is weak and not trustworthy enough to recapture other territory held by Islamic State, including the much larger city of Mosul. Tikrit, hometown of the late dictator Saddam Hussein, is in the Sunni heartland of Iraq.

At stake is much more than future votes: Islamic State's rapid conquests in 2014 were made possible by support from Sunni tribal forces and ordinary citizens. They were convinced that the government – under Abadi's predecessor, Nuri al-Maliki – viewed their community as terrorists. If Sunnis dislike what they see in Tikrit, they may not back the government's efforts against Islamic State.

DEFENDING LIVES AND PROPERTY

On Friday, the government sought to assure all sides that it will enforce order. Abadi issued a statement calling on the security forces to arrest anyone breaking the law.

Asked to comment on the scenes witnessed by Reuters, his spokesman Rafid Jaboori said he would not address individual incidents but said: "People's lives and property are priorities, whether in this operation or in the overall military effort to liberate the rest of Iraq."

Sunni lawmakers who visited Tikrit complained that events have spun out of control since the security forces and militias retook the city.

Parliamentarian Mutashar al-Samarrai credited the government with orchestrating a smooth entrance into Tikrit. But he said that some Shi'ite paramilitary factions had exploited the situation. "I believe this happened on purpose to disrupt the government's achievement in Tikrit," Samarrai said. "This is a struggle between the (paramilitaries) and the government for control."

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Smoke rises from burning shops in Tikrit April 2, 2015. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

Neighborhoods entered by the Iraqi forces and Shi'ite paramilitaries have been burnt, including parts of neighboring Dour and Auja, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein.

Security forces blame Islamic State for rigging houses with explosives, while Sunnis suspect the Shi'ite militias and the army and police of deliberately torching their homes.

Looting has also been a problem. Shi'ite paramilitary fighters in pickup trucks raced through the city carrying goods that appeared to have been looted from homes and government offices.

The vehicles were crammed with refrigerators, air conditioners, computer printers, and furniture. A young militia fighter rode on a red bicycle, gleefully shouting: "I always dreamed of having a bike like this as a kid."

Brigadier General Maan, the main spokesman for the government forces, said police were stopping vehicles that appeared to have stolen items. "We are doing our best to impose the law."

IRAN'S FINGERPRINTS

Passions were running high among the Shi'ite militia groups before the assault. Islamic State beheaded people and carried out other atrocities in the lands it conquered. In particular, the militias wanted revenge for Islamic State's killing in June of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers captured from Camp Speicher, a base near Tikrit. It was an event that came to symbolize the Sunni jihadists' barbarism.

Despite Baghdad's efforts to rein in the paramilitaries, the fingerprints of the Shi'ite militias – and of Iran itself – were all over the operation's final hours.

On Wednesday, as Tikrit fell, militiamen were racing to stencil their names on houses in order to take credit for the victory.

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Members of Hashid Shaabi forces ride in a vehicle as smoke rises in shops at al-Qadisiya neighborhoo …

An Iranian fighter, with a Kalashnikov rifle slung over his shoulder and a picture of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pinned to his chest, bragging about Tehran's role in the campaign.

"I am proud to participate in the battle to liberate Tikrit," said the man, who called himself Sheik Dawood. "Iran and Iraq are one state now."

On the edge of Tikrit in the hours after the city's fall, a Shi'ite paramilitary group drove in a convoy past several police cars. The militiamen had strung the corpse of a suspected Islamic State fighter from the back of a white Toyota pickup truck. The cable dragging the man snapped, and the vehicle stopped.

The men got out to retie the bullet-riddled corpse. As they fastened the cable tighter to the body, a song about their victory over Islamic State played on the truck's stereo. Then they sped off, the corpse kicking up a cloud of dust.

The policemen standing nearby did nothing.

On Wednesday afternoon, Reuters saw two suspected Islamic State detainees – identified as an Egyptian and a Sudanese national – in a room in a government building. The Egyptian and the Sudanese were then taken outside by police intelligence.

Word spread that the two suspected Islamic State prisoners were being escorted out. Federal policemen, who had lost an officer named Colonel Imad the previous day in a bombing, flocked around the detainees.

The interior ministry spokesman, Brigadier Maan, said the Egyptian had stabbed an Iraqi police officer, which explains the anger against him. Reuters couldn't verify that claim.

"WE WANT TO AVENGE OUR COLONEL"

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Members of Hashid Shaabi forces ride in a vehicle as smoke rises in shops at al-Qadisiya neighborhoo …

The two prisoners were put in the back of a pickup truck. As the vehicle tried to leave, the crowd blocked it.

The federal policemen started shouting to the intelligence officers: Hand over the men. The intelligence officers tried to shield the prisoners. One pulled a sidearm as the federal police began swinging their fists.

The mob was screaming: "We want to avenge our Lieutenant Colonel."

Shi'ite paramilitary men swarmed the area. The street filled with more than 20 federal police. Gunfire erupted. Bullets ricocheted. At least one of the Shi'ite fighters was wounded, and began bleeding from the leg.

The pickup truck tried to back up. People in the mob grabbed one of the prisoners from the truck, the Egyptian, and pulled him out.

The Egyptian sat silently at the feet of two big policemen in their twenties. His eyes filled with fear. He was surrounded by a few dozen people, a mix of federal police and Shi'ite militiamen.

"He is Daesh, and we should take revenge for Colonel Imad," the two federal police officers yelled, using a derogatory Arabic term for Islamic State.

One of the policemen held a black-handled knife with a four-to-five-inch blade. The other gripped a folding knife, with a three-inch blade and a brown handle.

They waved their knives in the air, to cheers from the crowd, and chanted: "We will slaughter him. We will take revenge for Colonel Imad. We will slaughter him."

The policemen laid the Egyptian's head over the curb. Then one of the police pushed the other out of the way and he swung his whole body down, landing the knife into the Egyptian's neck.

The cop lifted the knife and thrust the blade in the Egyptian's neck a second time. Blood gushed out, staining the boots of the cheering onlookers.

The killer started to saw through the neck, but it was slow-going. He lifted the blade again and slammed it into the Egyptian's neck another four times. Then he sawed back and forth.

"BRING ME A CABLE"

Their fellow policemen chanted: "We took revenge for Colonel Imad."

The killer lifted himself up the street pole next to the dying man so he could address his comrades: "Colonel Imad was a brave man. Colonel Imad didn't deserve to die at the hands of dirty Daesh. This is a message to Colonel Imad's family don't be sad, raise your heads."

Then he shouted: "Let's tie the body to the pole so everyone can see. Bring a cable. Bring a cable."

His friend with the folding knife kept trying to stab the Egyptian, with no success. He cried out: "I need a sharp knife. I want to behead this dirty Daesh."

Finally the men found a cable, fastened it to the dead man's feet and dangled him from the pole.

One policeman grew upset at the spectacle and shouted: "There are dozens of media here. This is not the suitable time. Why do you want to embarrass us?"

The mob ignored him and continued trying to hoist the body. White bone stuck out from his slashed neck, his head flopped from side to side, and the blood continued to gush forth.

(Reported by Reuters correspondents in Tikrit whose names have been withheld for security reasons, and by Ned Parker in Baghdad. Written by Ned Parker. Edited by Michael Williams.)