What exactly was attacked in Syria? According to leading Iranian news outlets, no Iranian bases were attacked near Damascus. At most it was  a “Syrian army weapons depot”  a base near Damascus. And yet according to a more detailed report by the Turkish new agency Anadolu, not only was a weapons base attacked, it was a military base where a Syrian army unit and a munitions factory are located. According to Iranian and Syrian reports, Syrian missiles intercepted Israeli surface-to-surface missiles, which were fired from the area of Tel Fares in the Golan Heights. At the same time, Israeli planes attacked targets in Syria with air-to-surface missiles from Lebanese airspace.

The Iranian reports are making an effort to frame the assault as an incident that doesn’t warrant a main headline and most particularly if it has nothing to do with Iran. If Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman states publicly that there are no Iranian forces in Syria, why should Iran deny it?

According to reports in Syria, the assault was near the city of Al Kiswah, south of Damascus. If this is true, this is a Syrian base where Hezbollah activists and other Iranian-backed forces are stationed. The lack of an official Iranian response so far, even one that makes clear its commitment to protect Syria, could attest to the fact that at this point Tehran doesn’t want the assault to become a strategic test that could lead to a direct clash with Israel.

Read the full article at Haaretz.