Jerusalem Post: Israeli Army (IDF) Hezbollah Head Of Golan Operations Murdered US Troops In Iraqتقرير من الجرازولم بوست: الجيش الإسرائيلي يقول بأن مسؤول حزب الله عن عمليات الجولان علي موسى دقدوق كان قتل جنود أميركيين في العراق

Israeli Army (IDF) Hezbollah Head Of Golan Operations Murdered US Troops In Iraq
تقرير من الجرازولم بوست: الجيش الإسرائيلي يقول بأن مسؤول حزب الله عن عمليات الجولان علي موسى دقدوق كان قتل جنود أميركيين في العراق
Jerusalem Post/March 13/19

ِAl Arabiya/Israel says notorious Hezbollah commander building terror unit in Golan Heights

The IDF’s exposure of Hizballah’s Golan unit ties in with US plans to deal with pro-Iranian militias around Iraqi-Syrian border
DEBKAfile/March13/19

إسرائيل تتّهم «حزب الله» بإنشاء وحدة سرّية في الجولان
بيروت/الشرق الأوسط/13 آذار/19
تتّجه الأنظار مجدداً إلى مثلث التوتّر الإسرائيلي اللبناني السوري بعدما أعلن الجيش الإسرائيلي اليوم (الأربعاء) أنه كشف وحدة أقامها حزب الله أخيراً عبر خط وقف اطلاق النار في مرتفعات الجولان السورية يرأسها قيادي سابق في الحزب سُجن فترة في العراق لضلوعه في هجوم على القوات الأميركية.
وبعد استعادة قوات نظام بشار الأسد السيطرة على غالبية مناطق جنوب سوريا بمساندة من روسيا وإيران، تخشى إسرائيل تشكيل جبهة تنشط ضدها في تلك المنطقة. وقالت إسرائيل إن “الخطة السرية” لحزب الله تقضي بـ “محاولة إعادة إنشاء وحدة سرية وتموضعها لتكون قادرة على العمل ضد إسرائيل”، و”ذلك بعدما فقد حزب الله شرعية بقائه العلني في سورية مع انتهاء الحرب الداخلية”، كما قال المتحدث العسكري باسم الجيش الاسرائيلي افيخاي ادرعي عبر “تويتر”، مشيراً إلى أن “إنشاء الوحدة يجري من خلال الاعتماد على أُطر حزب الله الأخرى القائمة في سورية ولبنان، بالإضافة إلى بنية تحتية ووحدات في الجيش السوري وسكان سوريين في الشق السوري من هضبة الجولان”. وأضاف أدرعي أنه يتم خلال هذه المرحلة “تجميع معلومات عن مواقع قائمة وتابعة للجيش السوري. ويُتوقع استخدام هذه المواقع من جانب الوحدة السرية دون علم عناصر الجيش السوري”. من جهته، قال المتحدث باسم الجيش الإسرائيلي اللفتنانت كولونيل جوناثان كونريكوس: “لن نسمح لحزب الله بأن يقيم بنية تحتية إرهابية في الجولان قادرة على ضرب مدنيين إسرائيليين”. وأضاف: “نحمّل النظام السوري مسؤولية أي شيء يحصل داخل سوريا ويستهدف إسرائيل”. ولفت الجيش الإسرائيلي إلى أن الوحدة لا تزال في مرحلة التأسيس والتجنيد ولم تبدأ عملياتها بعد، كاشفاً أنها برئاسة القيادي في حزب الله علي موسى دقدوق الذي أفرج عنه من سجن في العراق عام 2012 لنقص الأدلة بشأن ضلوعه في التخطيط لقتل جنود أميركيين في مدينة كربلاء. وقد ألقي القبض عليه عام 2007 للاشتباه بأن له دورا في العملية التي أدت إلى مقتل خمسة جنود. وبقي في عهدة القوات الأميركية إلى حين تسليمه إلى السلطات العراقية في ديسمبر (كانون الأول) 2011. واللافت أن هذا التطوّر يخالف أنباء وتقارير انتشرت أواسط العام 2018 عن أن روسيا وإسرائيل توصلتا بعد أشهر من المفاوضات إلى تفاهم يقضي بضرورة إبقاء إيران وحزب الله بعيدَين عن الحدود الشمالية لإسرائيل مع سوريا. وجاء في تقرير نشرته صحيفة “جيروزاليم بوست” الإسرائيلية في 28 مايو (أيار) 2018 أن إسرائيل وروسيا اتفقتا على السماح للجيش السوري بإعادة السيطرة على جنوب سوريا حتى الحدود مع إسرائيل، مقابل عدم السماح لإيران وحزب الله بالمشاركة في هذه العملية، واحتفاظ إسرائيل بقدرتها على التصدي للتوسع الإيراني في سوريا. ووقتذاك، قال وزير الخارجية الروسية سيرغي لافروف إن الحضور العسكري الوحيد المسموح به على الحدود الجنوبية لسوريا هو حضور القوات النظامية الحكومية. في أي حال، قال رئيس المجلس التنفيذي لحزب الله هاشم صفي الدين، خلال احتفال في جنوب لبنان يوم 22 يوليو (تموز) 2018، إن حزب الله لم يغادر جنوب سوريا وأنه شارك في المعركة ضد المعارضين في درعا والقنيطرة في الجنوب السوري. ويناقض هذا الكلام تأكيد مبعوث الرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين إلى سوريا ألكسندر لافرينتييف الذي زعم في تلك الفترة أن القوات الإيرانية انسحبت مسافة 85 كيلومتراً من الحدود الإسرائيلية، مؤكداً أن الحكومة الروسية تأخذ الحاجات الأمنية لإسرائيل في الاعتبار.

The Hezbollah terrorist organization has begun an attempt to establish and entrench a covert force in the Syrian Golan Heights.

The Lebanese Shi’ite terror group Hezbollah is building a new and dangerous terror network in Syria’s Golan Heights without the knowledge of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the IDF has revealed.

“The Hezbollah terrorist organization has begun an attempt to establish and entrench a covert force in the Syrian Golan Heights that is designed to act against Israel when given the order,” the IDF said on Tuesday.

It is led by senior Hezbollah commander Ali Mussa Daqduq, who spent five years in an Iraqi prison for a 2007 attack that killed five American soldiers in the Karbala Governorate. He was released in 2012, went back to Lebanon and was sent to Syria this past summer to establish the Golan terror network.

Other senior Hezbollah operatives involved in the clandestine project have been identified by the IDF as Bashar and Ismail Mustafa, Talal Hassoun and Fahim Abu Qais.

According to senior intelligence officers in the IDF’s Northern Command, Hezbollah’s Golan Project began in the summer following the reconquering of the Syrian Golan by regime troops.

All actions of operatives are compartmentalized and kept secret from each other and the local population to advance their project without the regime knowing.

“Hezbollah is taking advantage of the fact that Assad is busy in the north of the country and that villagers in the Syrian Golan need the money,” the senior officers said, stressing that “if Assad is serious then he has to have full control and know what is happening in his territory.”

The Hezbollah militants are currently focusing on familiarizing themselves with the Syrian Golan Heights and on gathering intelligence on Israel and the border area. They are also working to establish intelligence gathering capabilities against Israel, operating from civilian observation posts and regime military positions near the border.

The Golan Project has its headquarters in Damascus and the Lebanese capital of Beirut, and there are tens of operatives operating in the Syrian towns of Hader, Quneitra and Erneh who collect intelligence on Israel and military movement on the Israeli Golan Heights.

“The proximity of these communities to Israel is what allows the operatives to conduct observations continuously and without revealing their true goal – to convey information about the regular activities of our forces to Hezbollah and the leaders of the network,” the military said.

According to the senior officers, the operatives have weaponry available from the civil war and if needed, will receive additional weaponry from Lebanon or existing arsenals kept by Hezbollah and Iran in Syria.

While some of the operatives have taken part in attacks against Israel in the past, other local Syrian villagers joined for financial reasons. A portion of the operatives have undergone training by Hezbollah in sabotage, sharpshooting and firing Grad rockets.

“The Northern Command and the 210th Division have identified the enemy’s movements and are acting to strengthen the security response at the border by strengthening intelligence gathering capabilities, fire capabilities and are defending the sector with increased forces,” said Brig.-Gen. Amit Fisher, Commander of the 210th Division.

According to Fisher, IDF troops “are operating overtly and covertly to locate the enemy, force them away from the border and ensure security near the border.”

Last week, Syrian media reported that the IDF shelled Hader, and a similar incident occurred on February 11 with local Syrian media reporting that the IDF shelled a position in the city of Quneitra.

Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later admitted that the IDF had struck positions in Syria’s Quneitra district in February, stating that Israel is “operating every day, including yesterday, against Iran and its attempts to establish its presence in the area.”

Senior officials later admitted that the shelling targeted Iranian-backed Shi’ite militiamen who were trying to set up a base of operations near the Israeli Golan Heights.

Israel captured the Golan Heights, some 1,200 square kilometers, from Syria during the Six Day War in 1967 and unilaterally annexed it in 1981. The 1974 ceasefire accord signed following the Yom Kippur War the previous year established a buffer zone between the two enemy countries. It was patrolled by UN troops until peacekeepers were abducted by Syrian rebels 2014.

Syrian troops recaptured southern Syria seven years after losing the area to rebel groups and returned to its positions along with Hezbollah operatives. Both UN peacekeepers and Russian military police have been deployed along the Golan Heights border.

“We hold the Syrian Regime as the sovereign its territory and expect it to honor the terms of the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement,” the military said on Tuesday, adding that “we expect it to prevent any hostile elements, including Hezbollah, from operating out of its territory. The IDF will not allow any attempt by Hezbollah to entrench itself near the border and we will act with all our might to force this terrorist organization out of the Golan Heights and ensure the stability of the region.”

The IDF’s exposure of Hizballah’s Golan unit ties in with US plans to deal with pro-Iranian militias around Iraqi-Syrian border
DEBKAfile/March13/19
Israel’s military spokesman Wednesday, March 13, disclosed that Hizballah had planted a terrorist unit on the Syrian Golan for conducting attacks on Israel. The “Golan file” was discovered by the IDF Northern Command intelligence arm. It was so secret that Syria’s President Bashar Assad was not informed, said the statement. The unit under the command of Ali Musa Daqduq is said to defer directly to Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah. IDF Col. Amit Fischer, head of the Bashan division and the Golan sector, reported that the Hizballah unit is still getting organized and is meanwhile engaged in intelligence-gathering on Israeli troop deployments and mapping out routes and targets.
DEBKAfile assumes that the IDF high command had its own reasons for making this disclosure at this time since it is not new. Hizballah has never paused in its attempts to establish terrorist structures on the Syrian Golan with a view to opening a second front against Israel if attacked. Its presence has been consistently covered by DEBKAfile for eight months, ever last July, when the IDF allowed Syrian army units to take over rebel-held regions opposite Israel’s Golan border. Our military sources revealed at the time that Hizballah fighters were integrated in the Syrian units, disguised in Syrian army uniforms, and setting up observation posts and terrorist teams opposite IDF positions. It was those Hizballah posts near Quneitra and the Syrian Druze village of Al Khader that Israel tanks shelled in early February.
Our analysts offer some explanation for the IDF’s “revelations” at this time.
March 13 marks two months since Israel wound up its “Operation Northern Shield” for eliminating Hizballah’s cross-border tunnels from Lebanon, an operation which, incidentally, had little effect on the balance of strength between Israel and Hizballah.
Underlining the Hizballah threat from southwestern Syria will no doubt contribute to the campaign launched by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US Senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz for gaining congressional recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan.
But there is another, military, factor at work: US forces in Syria and Iraq are gearing up for action against the Iraqi-Shiite militia concentrations swarming through western Iraq and eastern Syria. On March 9, this site exclusively reported US reinforcements streaming to the front on both sides of the border.
Those troop movements continue and will be covered and analyzed in detail in the coming issue of DEBKA Weekly (for subscribers) which comes out on Friday, March 15. If you are not already a subscriber, click here to sign on.
Of especial interest are the three elements left out of the IDF disclosure. We list them below:
Background is lacking on Ali Musa Daqduq, commander of the Hizballah’s “Golan file” unit.
The two overseers of the operation, Iran and its Middle East commander, Al Qods Chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani, don’t rate a mention.
3. Neither does the Iraqi Shiite militia, Asaib Ahl al-Haq (the Khazali Network), which is closely allied to the Lebanese Hizballah and on March 7 issued a “call for resistance against the US presence in the region.” Daqduq has close ties with this militia and has a history with its commander Qais al-Khazali.
Daduq himself is a Lebanese Shiite who was employed as a senior Hizballah operational activist in Lebanon from 1983. In May 2006, he was sent to Tehran to assist the Revolutionary Guards Al Qods external terrorist arm train and organize the Iraqi Shiite militias for battle against the US and its coalition allies.
After that, he continued to work closely with Gen. Soleimani in the role of adviser to the Khazali Network. Daqduq took part in the Shiite militia’s operations in southern Iraq under orders from Soleimani. One of them took place on Jan. 20, 2007 against the regional coordination command in Karbala, in which four American soldiers were kidnapped and murdered.
Taking all this information into account, the Golan operation uncovered by the Israeli military on March 13 should be counted as an Iranian-Shiite-Hizballah project with three notorious commanders, Iran’s Qassem Soleimani, Iraq’s Qais al-Khazali and Lebanon’s Hassan Nasrallah.

Israel says notorious Hezbollah commander building terror unit in Golan Heights
AFP, Jerusalem/Wednesday, 13 March 2019 /Israel’s army said Wednesday it had uncovered a unit recently created by Hezbollah across the ceasefire line in the Syrian Golan Heights and led by a commander previously jailed over an attack on US forces.
With President Bashar al-Assad regaining control of southern Syria with the help of Russia and Hezbollah backer Iran, Israel is concerned that a front against it could be established there.Hezbollah, based in neighboring Lebanon, has also been supporting Assad in the war. Israel alleged the new unit, “masterminded” by Hezbollah, was being established “to eventually control teams of Syrian operatives who will launch attacks against Israel”.
“We are not going to allow Hezbollah to establish a terror infrastructure on the Golan capable of striking Israeli civilians,” said Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, Israeli military spokesman. “We hold the Syrian regime responsible for anything that happens inside Syria aimed at Israel.”The army said the unit was in the establishment and recruitment stage and was not yet operational. It said it is led by Hezbollah commander Ali Musa Daqduq.
The accusations against Daqduq came as Israel seeks US recognition of its claim of sovereignty over parts of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau on the Syrian frontier, which it captured in a 1967 war and deems a key security buffer. Israel’s acting foreign minister was quoted as saying such US recognition would be “an appropriate” response to what he said was increased Hezbollah activity on the Golan.
Iraqi detention
Daqduq was released from detention in 2012 in Iraq, where he had been accused by the United States of orchestrating a 2007 kidnapping that resulted in the killing of five US military personnel. The United States had handed Daqduq over to Baghdad in 2011 after failing to secure a custody deal ahead of the US military’s withdrawal from Iraq. Washington said it had received Baghdad’s assurances Daqduq would be prosecuted, but he was later cleared by an Iraqi court and repatriated to Lebanon.
There was no immediate response to Israel’s allegations on Wednesday from Hezbollah, Syria or the US and Russian embassies in Israel. US diplomats have said they are in talks with Israel about its request to recognize its sovereignty on the Golan, a status that has yet to win any formal endorsement among world powers.
Israel’s Mako news site quoted acting Foreign Minister Israel Katz of saying that such recognition by the United States would be “an appropriate and required response” to the allegations about Hezbollah’s activity on the Syrian Golan.
“I hope that this will soon happen, during the prime minister’s upcoming visit to Washington,” Katz was quoted as saying. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to address the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC in the US capital in late March.
In the past, Russia has spoken in favor of other foreign forces leaving Syria, though it plans to keep a garrison there. Israel has carried out scores of air strikes against suspected Iranian targets on Syrian Golan and further into the country, and threatened to continue such operations as required.