The Real Danger

There are those among the Syrian rebels who are marking Israel as the next enemy, and possess an arsenal of missiles. However, it seems that they have no present interest or ability to launch those missiles at Israel. A commentary

Amir Rapaport

To this day, the Syrian opposition forces have yet to use the strategic weapons that have fallen into their hands from the areas that they have taken (including at least one chemical weapon storehouse). The problem is that the "opposition" is not a unified entity: forces of the moderate Sunni majority in the country are fighting against Bashar Assad, with assistance from the west, alongside Global Jihad persons, who are already marking Israel and the rest of the “heretics” as their next enemy, once they are done with Assad.

From this perspective, the images seen online are indeed worrying: the combination of Global Jihad persons and surface-to-surface missiles is problematic. However, the new threat should be taken in proportion: Western intelligence is assessing that at this point, there are hundreds of unmistakable Al Qaeda and Global Jihad persons – most of them in the country’s northern region and in the area of Damascus, and some are in Dara'a, relatively close to the border with Israel.


Jerusalem is assessing that as time passes, a situation is taking shape where Assad will operate to establish an Alawite state in the north, with access to the Mediterranean ocean in Latakia. Towards this end, he benefits from tremendous support from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. Assad will attempt to gather the stockpile of strategic weapons in the area that will remain under his control, but he will continue losing parts of it in areas where he is being defeated. With regards to the Syrian military’s missile arsenal, the most dangerous weapons from Israel’s perspective are the M-600 missiles, which have a range of hundreds of kilometers and can hit targets with a precision of a few meters.
Thus far, Israel has not had to deal with the threat of missiles with such a precision. However, it is not only the surface-to-surface missiles: the strategic weapons that Israel is concerned of falling into “irresponsible” hands includes Yakhont shore-to-sea missiles and SA-17 surface-to-air missiles. The Yakhont missiles have a speed of more than twice the speed of sound, and can precisely hit targets at sea in ranges of up to 300 kilometers. These are missiles that may pose a threat to the Israeli gas rigs in the future, as well as Israeli civilian and military vessels, and the antiaircraft missiles will damage Israel’s total air superiority wherever they might be found.
However, it does not seem that the rebels will have an interest in launching the missiles seen in YouTube clips towards Israel, and it seems that they also lack the ability to do so. Therefore, Israel's genuine concern will continue to be the acquisition of the strategic weapons – primarily by Hezbollah. Last month’s attack in Syria, which was attributed by foreign sources to Israel, was intended to prevent precisely this possibility.
Meanwhile, what will become of Syria? More than 100 people will continue to be killed there on a daily average. The number of fatalities in the civil war has already crossed the 50,000 mark, the number of refugees is estimated at nearly one million, and the end of the fighting is still not in sight.