Syrians reportedly asked Iran not to launch attacks against Israel from their territory to avoid an all-out war as the country is already weakened, The New York Times reported Friday, citing a source in Damascus.
An Iran-led alliance met virtually about one year ago, to discuss how to respond to strikes in Syria against Iranian interests, attributed to the Israel, according to Gheis Ghoreishi, an analyst close to the Iranian government.
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Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad holds talks with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Damascus, Syria, March 23, 2022
(Photo: AP / Omar Sanadiki)
Military experts from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Al-Quds Force, participated in the meeting.
During the discussions, Syrian officials reportedly asked Iran and its proxies not to carry out attacks against Israel from its territory.
This led to the Tehran-led axis retaliating against Israeli strikes by attacking United States bases, according to the New York Times, reportedly in hopes that the US would pressure Israel into halting its strikes on Syria.
Senior US officials told the Times that the August 15 drone attacks on Syria's al-Tanf base - which houses US troops - were more sophisticated than previous attacks and may have been an Iranian attempt to respond to an earlier airstrike attributed to Israel.
The day before the drone strike, at least three Syrian soldiers were killed in suspected Israeli airstrikes targeting sites near Tartous on the Syrian coast and near Damascus, according to the Syrian news agency SANA.