Iranian general says Assad blocked Tehran’s effort to open Syrian front against Israel

Iran’s former top general in Syria has revealed that Tehran pushed the since-deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to open an additional front against Israel as it battled terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah over the past 15 months.

In a recording cited by the New York Times on Wednesday, Brig. Gen. Behrouz Esbati said ties with Assad had been strained prior to the Syrian regime’s collapse at the beginning of December, over his refusal to let Iran-backed militias open a new front against Israel from Syria.

Iran had presented Assad with detailed plans to use Iranian resources in Syria to attack Israel, but despite multiple requests, he refused to let them go ahead, Esbati said.

Esbati spoke last week at a Tehran mosque, and his comments were reported in Iranian media on Monday, the NY Times said. In other remarks, Esbati acknowledged that the Islamic Republic was “defeated very badly” by the fall of Assad, despite Iranian leaders’ repeated efforts to downplay the matter.

He also was said to play down the notion of Iran again directly attacking Israel and accused Russia of shutting down radar systems in Syria during alleged Israeli attacks on Iranian resources.

The fall of the Assad regime came amid an ongoing war in the Gaza Strip that began on October 7, 2023, when the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group Hamas led thousands of terrorists to attack Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251.

The next day Hezbollah began attacking along Israel’s northern border. That conflict also spiraled into an open war that ended with a fragile ceasefire at the end of November after Israel largely decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and resources.

In addition, other Iranian proxies, such as militias in Iraq and Yemen’s Houthis rebels, have also fired missiles and drones at Israel since the Gaza war started.

Brig. Gen. Behrouz Esbati, a senior #Iran regime general in #Syria who has worked also in the Armed Forces General Staff, gave remarks in recent days where he said “I don’t consider losing Syria something to be proud of. We were defeated, and defeated very badly, we took a very… pic.twitter.com/wR74HA1IVE

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) January 8, 2025

Despite the ostensible refusal of Assad to sanction the opening of a Syrian front with Israel, there were several rocket attacks from Iran-backed groups in Syria at northern Israel in the past 15 months, though apparently not at the scale Iran had sought. Such attacks had also occurred from time to time before the war started.

Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets at Israel during the same period. This, along with the threat of a possible massive cross-border attack similar to Hamas’s, forced the evacuation of 60,000 northern residents of Israel and tied up military resources that were deployed to the area. Israel launched an offensive against Hezbollah in September that eventually brought about a mediated truce in November.

Days after the battered Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in late November, the Assad regime fell, marking two major strategic setbacks for Iran. Hamas, too, has been greatly diminished by the war in Gaza, with many senior figures killed, including two of its long-time leaders.

Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah are all avowed to destroy Israel.

“I don’t consider losing Syria something to be proud of,” Esbati said “We were defeated and defeated very badly. We took a very big blow and it’s been very difficult.”

For decades, Iran and Syria were key strategic allies. Tehran used Syria to supply its proxy Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon with weaponry, and Iranian military advisers as well as Hezbollah helped the Assad regime battle insurgents during the country’s prolonged civil war.

But in December rebel forces surged across Syria and ended the Assad regime’s 50-year rule. Since then, the new government has sought to reassure the world that it seeks regional stability and has opened channels of communication with several Western nations, while also talking to Iran.

Esbati accused Russia of saying it was bombing rebel forces in Syria when it was in fact dropping munitions on open fields. He further claimed that over the past year, as Israel allegedly stepped up bombing a campaign on Iranian resources in Syria, the Russians “turned off radars,” enabling the strikes.

According to the report, Esbati oversaw Iran’s military operations in Syria and worked closely with the country’s ministers, defense officials, and Russian generals. Moscow was also an ally of the Assad regime and provided military support, including significant air power, during the civil war.

Israel has acknowledged carrying out hundreds of aerial raids on Iranian targets in Syria but generally does not comment on specific attacks.

In light of the heavy Russian presence in Syria, Israel in September 2015 set up a mechanism with Moscow — involving work groups led by the deputy chiefs of both militaries — to avoid conflicts and potentially fatal misunderstandings.

Despite Assad’s ouster, Esbati said Tehran will still look for ways to enlist fighters in Syria regardless of who runs the country.

“We can activate all the networks we have worked with over the years,” he was quoted as saying. “We can activate the social layers that our guys lived among for years; we can be active in social media and we can form resistance cells.”

“Now we can operate there as we do in other international arenas, and we have already started.”

The report noted that Iran faces public and political opposition in Syria, as well as Israeli warnings that it will act to destroy any Iranian military buildup.

Esbati’s speech at the Valiasr Mosque in central Tehran was titled “Answering Questions about Syria’s Collapse.”

During a question and answer session, Esbati said that Iran was not planning to again attack Israel, as it did twice last year.

“The situation” at the moment means another attack is not realistic, the report cited Esbati as saying. Across the Middle East, multiple arenas are waiting to see what steps the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump will take after he takes office on January 20.

Esbati also explained why Iran did not directly attack US military bases in the area, saying that would only bring a larger retaliation from the US and its allies. Esbati noted that some Iranian missiles would not escape US air defense systems.

Nonetheless, he offered his listeners assurances that Iran was still the dominant force in the region, the report said.

An Iranian member of the powerful Revolutionary Guards who worked in the past as a strategist in Iraq, where Iran also wields control over powerful militias, told The Times that Tehran has held meetings on forming a Syria strategy. Though no policy has been decided, there is agreement that chaos would benefit Iran.

Fighting over the past 15 months also drew in Iran directly when it fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in April and October last year. Both attacks were largely thwarted by Israeli air defenses in cooperation with the US and its regional allies.

Following the second attack, Israel carried out widespread strikes on Iran for the first time, pounding its air defense systems and rocket manufacturing capabilities.