With the end of the Syrian civil war, the IDF recognizes a new threat posed by demographic change and a significant increase in the population of Shiites and Alawites in Syria.
Thanks to his victory in the civil war that lasted almost a decade, it seems that Syrian President Assad is trying to restore the full independence of his country.
For the past year and a half, Assad has seemed to be "reborn."
It controls just over 60% of the original territory it controlled before 2011, with the rest of the territory divided between the Turks, Kurds (US-backed) and the remaining rebels with one significant stronghold in Idlib.
He seems to have been "reborn."
Syrian President Assad,
Apart from the territorial change, the war also brought with it a significant change in Assad's demographic composition in Syria.
If in 2011, on the eve of the civil war, the Syrian population numbered about 21.3 million inhabitants, 59% of them Sunnis, 11% Alawites and only 4% Shiites, then today the Syrian population in the territory controlled by Assad is only about 10 million citizens, with Shiites constituting 10% About 30% of the population and Alawites.
That is, if a decade ago the Shiites and Alawites made up about 15% of Syria's population, today they already make up about 40% of Assad's Syrian population, and their relative share is expected to increase.
The distress is exacerbated
Quite a few of Assad's Syrian Shiites are concentrated in southern Syria, that is, in the Syrian Golan Heights, which borders Israel.
Thus, in the villages of Karpa and Sida-Zinab there is a very large community of Shiites, numbering thousands of inhabitants.
In the village of Sasa, there is a medium-sized Shiite community of tens to hundreds of residents, and in about 8 other villages in the sector, there is a smaller Shiite community, of a few to dozens of Shiites.
At this time, it is still too early to talk about the "shiitization" of Syria or the Golan Heights, but this is definitely the trend.
At the same time, with the end of the war, the civil distress in the region is getting worse, the young people are immigrating outside Syria, and the poverty is very great.
Just to clear the ear - residents of the area barely survived the cold winter, and at one point it was announced that whoever continued to prune trees in favor of heating - would be sentenced to death.
Past experience shows that self-interested terrorist elements know how to exploit civilian distress of this kind through various charities, food aid and heating means, which bring about settlement in the hearts.
This is what happened with Hezbollah in Lebanon and with Hamas in Gaza.
IDF soldiers patrolling a fence in the north, Photo: Moshe Shai
The one who unsurprisingly is trying to take advantage of the situation in Syria is Iran - which is trying to enter a vacuum, not necessarily with the consent and consent of Syrian President Assad, who chose Moscow over Tehran.
The Shiite population has significant recruitment potential for Iran-led terrorist elements, and according to estimates in Israel, there are already a few hundred recruited by Hezbollah or Iran and its affiliates.
It is not certain that senior members of the Israeli defense establishment are sufficiently aware of the demographic trend, which may become more significant as time goes on, and become a security problem that threatens the north of the State of Israel.
If the horror scenario materializes, the northern state of Israel will be besieged with Hezbollah on the Lebanese border and the Shiites on the Syrian border.
In practice, thanks to significant IDF operations in the inter-war campaign, Iran is having great difficulty establishing a military base in Syria, and terrorist organizations are thwarted by the air or land.
In the area near the border, the 210th Division, under the command of Brigadier General Roman Goffman, is leading the campaign, through raids into Syrian territory and firing on the other side at terrorist infrastructure and positions of the Syrian army, violating the 1974 Israel-Syria separation of power agreements.
"In this context, ground forces that are not considered" special "forces, such as infantry and armored forces, carry out cross-fence operations or counter-firing operations. To.
Over the past year, a number of raids have been carried out in the area and several dozen ambushes, in which about 15 Syrians were caught crossing the border, some of them innocent.
Apart from the military operations, if the top members of the defense establishment understand that this is indeed a significant threat, it is likely that further operations will be carried out at the strategic level to deal with the new threat, including taking advantage of the fact that Assad himself is dissatisfied with Iranian presence.
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