The Israel Defense Force announced on Friday that in a series of security operations carried out in southern Syria in recent months, several members of terrorist organizations suspected of working for the "Feither 840" under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Israeli army said that the force was directly affiliated with the Iranian Quds Force and had long planned and carried out attacks on Israel.
In the operations in March and April this year, two battlefield agents of the 840th Unit, Zeidan al-Tawil and Muhammad al-Kuryan, were arrested in Syria. The military said these people were directly ordered by Iran to organize operations against Israel in Syria and surrounding areas.
In addition, the Israeli side has arrested several other terrorist suspects in multiple raids in recent weeks. These people are accused of being incited and directed by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Salah Husseini and Mohamed Shuaibu.
It is worth mentioning that Husseini and Shuaibu were killed in an Israeli air strike on Lebanon in July this year. The Israeli army pointed out that these two people are "core figures in Iran's weapons smuggling network" and are suspected of illegally transporting weapons from Iran to the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria.
The military mentioned in the notice that through the interrogation of the arrested suspect, it was found that not all recruits knew who they were working for. "In many cases, they were recruited into the 840th Unit through money temptations, and were not informed of the real motivations and structures behind the unit," said a senior intelligence official in Israel.
Since the fall of Syria's Bashar Assad regime in December 2024, Israel has significantly strengthened its military presence in Syria. The Israeli Defense Forces not only occupied the demilitarized zone on the Syrian border, but also destroyed several military facilities of the former government forces through large-scale air strikes. At present, the Israeli army has set up nine outposts in southern Syria, most of which are located in buffer zones patrolled by the United Nations.
Since December last year, the Israeli army has continued to carry out military operations in an area of about 15 kilometers (about 9.3 miles) in Syria, with the main goal of seizing weapons that Israel believes may pose a threat to its national security and preventing them from falling into the hands of "hostile forces."
The Israeli army said that in the past few months, ground forces have carried out more than 300 "daily operations" in southern Syria, including arresting suspects involving terrorists, blocking enemy military deployments and cutting off weapons smuggling routes to Lebanon through Syria.
During the Assad administration, Syria has been an important channel for Iran to deliver weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Tehran also secretly provided weapons support to armed groups in the West Bank through Jordan and Lebanon.
Although the new Israeli government has opened unprecedented channels of dialogue, the Israeli army has carried out hundreds of air strikes on targets in Syria, such operations have decreased in recent months.
On Wednesday, IDF Chief of General Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir confirmed at the Navy officer graduation ceremony that the Israeli army launched an air strike on Syria early this week, targeting a military base near Homs, as well as facilities around the city of Latakia and the ancient city of Palmyra. "In recent days, we have operated simultaneously on multiple fronts. In Syria, we have successfully attacked those forces trying to threaten our freedom of action."
