BICOM

The IDF commander overseeing Israel’s northern borders said that Israel is well equipped to deal with security threats posed by both sides of the Syrian civil war.

As international diplomatic efforts continue to disarm the Assad regime’s chemical stockpile, it remains unclear who if anyone will come out on top of Syria’s two and a half year long conflict. Indeed, in an exclusive interview with the Guardian this morning, Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said “Neither the armed opposition nor the regime is capable of defeating the other side.”

Maj.Gen. Yair Golan, the head of the IDF’s northern command told Yediot Ahronot that President Assad’s forces have lost around 15,000 troops, fired forty to fifty per cent of its long-range missiles and has had some of its anti-aircraft batteries destroyed. As a result, Golan said “He [Assad] can cause us damage, he can harass us greatly, but he cannot today wage a serious ground campaign against the State of Israel.” Golan also cautioned against overplaying the threat posed by Islamist opposition groups looking to defeat Assad in Syria, saying “The Global Jihad is a bad enemy, but it is a relatively primitive enemy that does not enjoy the backing of a regional power.”

Nonetheless, a battalion of the IDF’s Artillery Corps this week conducted a large-scale surprise drill, scrambling soldiers who were on leave to respond to a simulated attack on the Golan Heights from Syria. The second phase of the drill required the battalion to deploy fifty kilometres away on the Lebanon border to test its flexibility towards changing circumstances. Earlier this week, the United Nations’ Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry warned that fighting from Syria which has produced stray fire across the border to Israeli territory on the Golan Heights with some regularity could draw Israel into the Syrian conflict.