A February 9, 2018 article on the pro-Hizbullah Lebanese website Dahiya claims that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad recently rejected an Israeli demand, relayed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, to remove some 70,000 Iranian long-range missiles that Hizbullah has deployed throughout Syria and are aimed at Israel. The article claimed further that Syria and Hizbullah will wage a "joint missile campaign" against Israel, and that Iranian experts are ready to launch missiles at Israel from every part of Lebanon and Syria. According to the article, Assad has instructed his army to help Hizbullah construct and camouflage missile silos across the country; moreover, intense activity is underway to bring more Iranian missiles to Syria via Iraq, so that within a year Hizbullah will have 500,000 missiles in Syria, in addition to the ones it has already deployed in Lebanon.
The article was published following reports on Israeli airstrikes in Syria on February 7, and just before the incident in which Israel fired on Iranian military facilities in Syria following the penetration of an Iranian drone into Israeli territory.
The following are translated excerpts from the article.[1]
Image: addiyar.com
"[During] the visit of the prime minister of the Israeli enemy entity, Binyamin Netanyahu, to Moscow, he officially requested Russia to intervene with the Syrian leadership in order to remove some 70 thousand missiles that Hizbullah has placed on Syrian soil with the consent of the Syrian military command and in particular of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad...
"[These missiles] are meant to be fired into occupied Palestine from Syrian territory. They significantly complicate [the activity of] the Israeli enemy's air force, [since it] will have to bombard Hizbullah's missiles and bases in Lebanon in addition to the bases spread across Syria, which hold [these] 70,000 long-range Iranian missiles aimed at the Israeli enemy.
"Russian President Vladimir Putin relayed the request of the Israeli enemy to Syrian President Dr. Bashar Al-Assad, and the latter announced that Syrian refuses to remove Hizbullah's missiles despite the Israeli warning [that if they are not removed] it will destroy Damascus and bombard the Syrian army to pieces. Assad [even] announced that this time the Arab Syrian army and Hizbullah will carry out a joint missile campaign against Israel, in which Syria will fire long-range Scud missiles, of which Syria has 1,600...
"The enemy is now surrounded along 450 kilometers of its border by Hizbullah missiles and Iranian experts [who are ready] to fire these missiles into occupied Palestine from every part of Lebanon and especially from every part of Syria. Hizbullah wishes to expand its missile arsenal in Syria, so that, if the war lasts a long time, it will have large reserves of Iranian long-range missiles. That is why intense activity is underway along the Iran-Iraq-Syria route to transport the Iranian missiles [to Syria]. Iran has over two million long-range missiles, and it is acting to provide Hizbullah with an arsenal of long-range missiles to be deployed throughout Syria. The missiles have a range of 1,100 km and can reach occupied Palestine from every point in Syria. If the Israeli enemy remains idle and does not wage war for a year, Hizbullah will deploy half a million missiles on Syrian soil, in addition to [its missiles in] Lebanon, but especially throughout Syria, so that Israel's planes will find it difficult to target Hizbullah's bases there.
"Syrian President Dr. Bashar Al-Assad has permitted the Arab Syrian army to extend every necessary assistance to Hizbullah, which is secretly digging underground missile silos in which to install missiles and automatic missile launchers. The silos will be equipped with large doors that rise to a height of three meters to allow the launching of a missile, and then immediately close and lie flush with the ground, so that the Israeli planes cannot discover [the silos].
"It seems that Israel felt genuinely threatened by Hizbullah's growing missile arsenal in Syria, especially since Syria is very large, and that is why it relayed a clear warning that Hizbullah's missiles must be removed and that the transfer of any more missiles from Iran to Hizbullah must be prevented – otherwise it will start a war against Hizbullah in both Lebanon and Syria."
[1] Da7ye.com, February 9, 2018.
