Powered by WebAds

Friday, August 09, 2013

Syrian civil war spilling over into Israel?

A surprise IDF drill in the Golan Heights shows that the IDF is preparing for the possibility of the Syrian civil war spilling over into Israel.
A key battalion of the IDF’s Nahal infantry brigade held a surprise war drill this week, mobilizing troops from around the country to a staging area in the North, and launching a live-fire exercise together with other army units.
Lt.-Col. Menny Liberty, Commander of the Nahal Reconnaissance Battalion, has been stationed on the Golan Heights for the past four months, but stressed that the drill was not related to the Syrian arena.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, he described the drill as “very unique,” adding that in his many years of service in the IDF, he hasn’t seen a drill of this nature.
Liberty was originally told by his superiors that there would be a limited exercise for commanders based only on the use of maps, when suddenly, on Monday, a full-scale combat drill was announced.
“This really simulates reality. We never know when an emergency might catch us. Within a few hours, we had to go from a routine operational phase to being ready for war. We gathered all of the battalion from the northern region, and other places, like the Jordan Valley,” Liberty said.
While the current fear is spillover, the real fear is what happens if one side or the other wins. While Bashar al-Assad has had little appetite for war since taking power, it's hard to say what he will do if he has no rebellion with which to contend. And the rebels seem quite likely to attack Israel if they win, because that's what jihad is all about.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: , , , , , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

Google