At least 17 members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps were killed in a US strike on Shiite militia targets in Syria overnight Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Friday.

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The United States struck pro-Iranian targets inside Syria, Thursday night, in response to a Shiite militia missile strike targeting the US Embassy inside Baghdad's Green Zone.

The US strikes were the first such attack by Washington since US President Joe Biden took office in January.  

Among the targets of the US strikes were a special border crossing built by Iran's Revolutionary Guards near the Al Qaim Border Crossing adjacent to the village of Al Bukamal in eastern Syria. Pro-Iranian militias have used the border crossing to transfer equipment, forces, and weapons from its territory in Iraq to Syria. According to numerous reports, the crossing also served the Revolutionary Guards' adjacent Imam Ali military base.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported three trucks carrying munitions were taken out in the attack.

"There were heavy losses in the attack. At least 17 fighters were killed," Rami Abdul Rahman told Agence France-Presse, Friday.

Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby told reporters the strike was carried out "at President Joe Biden's orders." He said the strikes were not just carried out in response to earlier attacks by Shia militias but "to protect American and coalition personnel" in Iraq and Syria in the future.

No casualties have yet to be reported. While media outlets aligned with the Syrian regime did not report on the strike, a few outlets aligned with rebel fighters in the country did and quoted US officials in their reporting.

Noting he had recommended Biden order the attack in response to the Feb. 15 strike on US targets in Iraq, US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin said, "We're confident in the target we went after, we know what we hit. We're confident that the target was being used by the same Shia militia that conducted the strikes."

Earlier this week, media outlets aligned with opposition forces in Syria reported the Revolutionary Guards had transferred rocket launchers through the Syrian border crossing and stationed them at the Imam Ali base. A large shipment of weapons was also reported to have been transferred to pro-Iranian militias active in the area, chief among them Kata'ib Hezbollah in Iraq.

Two weeks ago, a contractor was killed and several US soldiers were wounded when missiles were fired at a US air base at Erbil National Airport, in Iraq's Kurdistan region. While no organization claimed responsibility for the attack, US officials believe it was carried out by Shia militias in the country.

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A new Israeli study indicates that pro-Iranian terrorist activity based in Lebanon is expanding across the globe, including the appointment of individuals to high-profile positions in order to push anti-Israel policy in numerous countries and even conceal Hezbollah activity in Europe and the United States.

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Dr. Michael Barak, a senior researcher and project manager at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, authored the report, which can be found on the ICT website. According to the report, an organization known as the "Arab and Muslim Union for Supporting the Resistance" is used as a pro-Iranian international platform that seeks to advance the goals of the resistance axis against the US, Israel and their allies. The group is headed by Lebanese national Yehia Ghaddar.

The pro-Iranian organization, which is based in Lebanon, maintains close-knit ties with Hezbollah and Shiite militias in Iraq, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Palestinian terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The organization has cultivated a network of global activity with the help of radical organizations and clerics, and even secular figures with the same worldview – which consists of the need to "fight imperialism and Zionism."

The Arab and Muslim Union for Supporting the Resistance presents itself as a framework meant to bolster the resistance axis, among other ways through public relations and raising awareness about "American and Zionist subversion." The organization does not hide its charter, which states support for armed struggle against its enemies, chief among them Israel. The organization also boasts of being at the forefront of Shiite activity across the globe.

The group also doesn't conceal its complete synchronicity with Hezbollah. At a conference in 2019, for example, which was attended by Hezbollah's official in charge of the terrorist organization's Palestine portfolio, participants accused the US and Israel of sponsoring the popular uprisings in Iraq. "The path of peace adopted by the Palestinians in order to restore their rights has failed," the Hezbollah official told the conference at the time.

A month ago, during an online conference marking the one-year anniversary of the assassinations of former Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Committee in Iraq, participants called for revenge and said the assassinations were a war crime justifying prosecution of the US at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

The conference also included calls that coincide with Iranian policy, such as strengthening cooperation with "popular protest movements" in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan – in the aim of helping them force their governments to withdraw from the Abraham Accords with Israel.

Meanwhile, the assassination of deputy al-Qaida commander Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah in Tehran on August 7 proved to the world that from the ayatollah regime's perspective, as long as it serves its interests it doesn't matter whether the terrorist is a Shiite or Sunni. And such is the case with the Arab and Muslim Union for Supporting the Resistance, which uses social media to conduct relations with the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan. In even closer proximity to Israel, the organization also has a representative in Ramallah, Amal Wadhan.

The Arab and Muslim Union for Supporting the Resistance has also branched out beyond the Middle East, for instance maintaining ties with the regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. In Europe, alarmingly, the organization is operating unencumbered, despite the fact that several European countries have designated Hezbollah a terrorist group.

In England, Martha Mundy, Prof. Emeritus of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and a prominent pro-Palestinian activist, helped coordinate the organization's international conference. In Germany, the organization's coordinator, Ibrahim Ibrahim, operates freely even though Hezbollah is outlawed in the country. In France, the organization's coordinator was a former advisor to UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force along the Israel-Lebanon border.

The group also operates unhindered in North America. In the US, the group's is represented by Paul Larudee, an Iranian-born political activist who is a major figure in the pro-Palestinian movement. Larudee has met in the past with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. The Arab and Muslim Union for Supporting the Resistance also has representatives in Africa and Australia. Thus, under the entire world's radar, Iran has created a network supporting terrorism.

'Shut down the organization's branches, now'

"Those countries where Hezbollah has been declared a terrorist organization must shut down the Arab and Muslim Union for Supporting the Resistance," says Dr. Michael Barak. "It's not just propaganda and dissent that gets passed through this social network, but also funding for [Shiite] militias and Hezbollah. The very presence of Arab and Muslim Union for Supporting the Resistance activists, who are pro-Hezbollah, illustrates the need to prosecute them."

Barak continues: "Countries such as Egypt and Morocco, which have peace agreements with Israel, have an interest in shutting down these branches, which are trying to mold public opinion and annul the Abraham Accords. This poses a threat to the stability of the regimes."

Regarding the Palestinian Authority, Barak says "It's very troubling, as the question that arises is why the PA allows such activity in its territory… Israel, the US and the enlightened world need to create a mechanism for coordinating the fight against the resistance axis' unseen activity."

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The same official reported that four other people, including two more children, had been wounded in the strike. Three homes north of the city Hama were reportedly destroyed.

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Overnight Thursday, Syrian media outlets reported that Israeli warplanes had struck several military targets in the central province of Hama.

State-news agency SANA quoted an unnamed military official as saying the attack took place shortly before dawn when Israeli jets flew over neighboring Lebanon.

It added that Syrian air defense units shot down most of the missiles.

Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against Iran-linked military targets in Syria over the years but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.

This was the first strike attributed to Israel in Syria since US President Joe Biden took office on Wednesday.

One Syrian journalist affiliated with the Bashar Assad regime reported that several civilians in the city of Hama were wounded in the airstrike.

The opposition-affiliated Step News Agency also reported casualties in the attack on installations belonging to the Syrian regime and Iranian militia in the Hama region.

Tension has been high in the Middle East over the past weeks as many had feared retaliation for the US killing of Iran's Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani last year in Baghdad.

On Jan. 13, Israeli warplanes carried out intense airstrikes in eastern Syria apparently targeting positions and arms depots of Iran-backed forces. At least 57 fighters were killed and dozens were wounded, according to a Syrian opposition war monitoring group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor that tracks Syria's war, said it recorded 39 Israeli strikes inside Syria in 2020 that hit 135 targets, including military posts, warehouses or vehicles.

Israel views Iranian entrenchment on its northern frontier as a red line, and it has repeatedly struck Iran-linked facilities and weapons convoys destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

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Interruptions caused by the virus, including border closings to prevent the spread of the disease, have drastically cut Tehran's cash supplies to the militia groups in recent months, said three Iraqi paramilitary group commanders and a regional official familiar with Iran's activities in Iraq. The funds from Iran are typically allocated for military operations related to the paramilitary groups' activities such as fighting Iran's opponents, including attacks against US targets, the three commanders said.

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Since the coronavirus hit earlier this year, Iran has reduced to $2-3 million from $4.5-5 million in monthly payments to each of the four top militia groups in Iraq, said one of the commanders, who belongs to a powerful paramilitary group. The reduced funding has impacted operations of the militia groups and is forcing them to seek alternative sources of funding for military operations and weapons such as from their own business interests, the commanders said.

Iraq shares a border with Iran, a coronavirus epicenter in the Middle East with more than 11,000 reported deaths.

Disruptions brought on by the pandemic come on top of a squeeze on Tehran's financing of the paramilitary groups over the past two years caused by US sanctions on Iran, said the three commanders and the regional official. The regional official said Tehran's funding of the groups has dropped by millions of dollars. The sanctions combined with the coronavirus crisis and a decline in oil prices have helped force Iran, which faces a large budget deficit, to limit its military spending including on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran's linking of its paramilitary proxies in a Shiite axis of power across Iraq and through Syria to the Mediterranean has been crucial to its strategy of countering US influence.

US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook agreed that US sanctions were having an impact on Iran's funding of paramilitary groups, saying it was "further evidence that our campaign of maximum pressure is successfully depriving the [Iranian] regime of revenue to fund its terror proxies and other destabilizing actions across the region." He did not discuss the degree of impact.

The squeeze on militia financing also follows the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January. The loss of the senior military commander, who created an Iran-aligned axis of influence across the Middle East and steered political allies in Iraq, has dealt a blow to the operations of paramilitary groups and Iran's broader aims in Iraq, according to the three commanders as well as the regional official and a senior Iranian diplomat.

The Iran-backed paramilitary groups helped the Iraqi government defeat the Islamic State group in 2017. They have dominated the Popular Mobilization Forces, an Iraqi state-controlled institution that is an umbrella grouping of militias, including and smaller Shiite groups that object to Iranian dominance. The PMF was formally integrated into Iraq's armed forces and has led many security operations.

A PMF spokesman, Muhannad al-Aqabi, declined to comment on any issues to do with groups backed directly by Iran. The PMF receives funding and equipment through official channels via the Iraqi state, even if the ultimate source of the money is often Iran, Aqabi said.

A spokesman at the public relations office of the IRGC denied that Iran finances the militias. "The Islamic republic has always supported the oppressed people in the region and beyond and our policy has not changed. But we do not provide financial support to those who fight against America's hegemony in our region."

When asked whether Iran's financial and military support of Iraqi paramilitaries had declined, Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York, said: "These rumors are designed to sow discord between the two nations and are doomed to fail." He added that Iran is "fully supportive" of the Iraqi government and that the two countries "engage closely in all matters of mutual interest" but that Iran doesn't interfere in its neighbor's internal affairs.

A spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister's office wasn't immediately available for comment. Other Iraqi government officials couldn't be reached or didn't respond to requests for comment.

Tehran has long seen its paramilitary partners as a way of exerting its presence in Iraq and countering the influence of Washington, a critical ally for Baghdad.

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US President Donald Trump started to re-impose sanctions in 2018, including measures targeting the IRGC, in an attempt to curb Tehran's missile and nuclear programs and diminish the Islamic republic's influence in the Middle East. Iran has said the US sanctions are illegal and hurt the Iranian people.

Prior to the US re-imposing sanctions, Tehran was sending $12 million to $15 million a month to its militia allies in Iraq, a major OPEC oil producer and one of the United States' most important allies in the Middle East, said the commander and another member of a powerful militia.

In addition to interruptions to funding from Iran, the three paramilitary commanders said border closures and the pandemic had reduced the flow of other types of support, including ammunition and training for Iraqi fighters sent to Syria to support President Bashar Assad in the multi-sided conflict.

The training, said the second commander, included street fighting, the use of anti-armor rockets, and the use of drones to triangulate enemy positions. That has all stopped, he said.

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On Tuesday, the IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate submitted a document outlining its security and defense projections for 2020, which said that while the chances a war would be launched against Israel were low, there was a mid-to-high risk that events north of the border could devolve into a war.

The 2020 assessment was updated following the US airstrike that killed commander of Iran's Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Military Intelligence sees the elimination of Soleimani as a restraining factor, but one whose full ramifications have yet to be understood. The IDF believes that Soleimani's successor, Maj. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, will find it very difficult to fill Soleimani's shoes.

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According to the assessment, Soleimani's absence will have a direct effect on Israel. He was in charge of Hezbollah's precision missile project as well as the plans to imbed Shiite militias in Syria. Now Shiite states will have to make decisions about the future of those initiatives. The IDF thinks that the militia project will proceed, while Hezbollah's missile project could be shelved if Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah concludes that it is more trouble than it is worth. MI says that Hezbollah currently has very limited precision missile capabilities, and that they are not yet operational.

The IDF assessment for 2020 also notes that Nasrallah is not seeking a war with Israel, but is willing to fight one to protect "the equation of deterrence" north of Israel. MI thinks that continued "between-wars" action by Israel could lead to a response, which could have greater potential to devolve into a larger-scale conflict than responses in the past. However, the military assesses that in light of Soleimani's killing, Israel should step up its military activity against Iran's attempts to entrench itself in Syria and elsewhere.

The IDF assessment also touched on domestic matters in Lebanon and Iran, saying that both nations would continue to be bogged down in political and economic troubles this year.

Tehran is living off reserves

American sanctions on Iran have led to a significant drop in Iranian oil sales (from 2.8 million barrels per day two years ago to some 300,000 barrels in December 2019) and have dealt a serious blow to the Iranian economy, which is based mostly on oil revenues. The result is that Iran is blowing through its currency reserves and is finding it difficult to offer its citizens hope. Nevertheless, the IDF sees the Iranian regime as "stable" and successfully handling the recent wave of popular protests.

The IDF assessment says that in 2020, Iran will be forced to make some tough decisions given the economic crisis and internal dissent, including whether and how to proceed with its nuclear program. While Iran has thrown off the limits it accepts as part of the 2015 nuclear deal, the IDF thinks that Tehran is operating in a manner that will allow it to avoid going too far and keep some bargaining chips ahead of negotiations for a new agreement.

The IDF also warns that if Iran decides to move ahead with its nuclear program, by the end of the year it could enrich enough uranium to build a nuclear bomb. However, it would need another year to achieve military nuclear capability. The IDF assessment stressed that Israel is tracking Iran's nuclear program with more intensity to ensure that Iran is not working in any "secret channel" that is unknown to the West.

Closer to the border, the IDF believes that Syria will continue to present challenges to Israel mostly in the Iranian context. Syrian President Bashar Assad is busy trying to complete his capture of the last two pockets of resistance to his regime, after which he will be busy trying to rebuild his country. The Syrian army has already begun a process of rebuilding that includes new purchases of weapons and is renewing its work on chemical weapons, as well as biological weapons to a lesser extent.

A change in Syria

Amid the backdrop of Syria's desire to rehabilitate the country and Iran's current struggles, the IDF sees an opportunity for strategic change in Syria, even to the point of expelling the Shiite axis. This would require intervention and arrangements between the US and Russia, which wants to deepen it foothold in the region. Although Israeli officials aren't noticing a change in the Americans' desire to reduce their Middle East presence, for the time being, at least, US influence in the region is growing, primarily but not only due to the deterrence established by the Soleimani assassination. The Americans' main challenge in the coming year will remain in Iraq, where the fight over the US military presence will continue.

On the Palestinian front, the intelligence points to opposite trends: the possibility for stability in Gaza against the potential for destabilization in Judea and Samaria. The IDF believes that in the coming year Hamas will continue adhering to its understandings with Israel, in the hope that doing so will improve Gaza's economic situation. With that, Hamas will not accept conditioning any further understandings on the release of Israeli prisoners and bodies of IDF soldiers it is holding, and also won't agree to limit its armament efforts.

In Judea and Samaria, the IDF is again sounding the alarm over the possibility of a strategic turn of events, with "potentially dangerous" ramifications for Israel. This could happen as a result of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' departure and the consequent battles over his succession, or as a result of Hamas possibly winning the planned general election in the PA. The terror threats from Judea and Samaria will not subside, and although they are expected to be lesser in scope, they will be more professional and potent in nature.

New projects

In its annual assessment, MI also points to the growing challenges on the cyber and social media fronts – both in terms of Israel's operations against its enemies and vice versa. In the coming year, the IDF intends to significantly increase its work in a variety of projects and subjects related to the field of information technology and how it can be used for intelligence gathering purposes. In its report, however, the IDF admits that it will continue struggling to predict economic developments and grass-root social shifts.

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Trump said the United States did not necessarily have to hit back after Iran's attack on military bases housing US troops in Iraq, itself an act of retaliation for the January 3 US strike that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.

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Trump said no Americans were hurt in the overnight attacks. The Pentagon said Iran had launched 16 short-range ballistic missiles, at least 11 of which hit Iraq's al-Asad air base and one that hit a facility in Irbil but caused no major damage.

"The fact that we have this great military and equipment, however, does not mean we have to use it. We do not want to use it. American strength, both military and economic, is the best deterrent," Trump said.

"Our great American forces are prepared for anything. Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world," he said.

Trump said the United States "will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime" in response to what he called "Iranian aggression." He offered no specifics.

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, addressing a gathering of Iranians chanting "Death to America," said the missile attacks were a "slap on the face" of the United States and said US troops should leave the region.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had said the strikes "concluded" Tehran's response to the killing of Soleimani, who built up Iran's network of proxy armies across the Middle East. He was buried in his hometown, Kerman, after days of national mourning.

"We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression," Zarif wrote on Twitter.

Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched.

We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 8, 2020

Influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who casts himself as a nationalist rejecting both US and Iranian interference in Iraq, also said the crisis Iraq was experiencing was over and he urged militia groups not to carry out attacks.

"I call on the Iraqi factions to be deliberate, patient, and not to start military actions," said Sadr, whom Washington has long regarded as an Iranian ally.

US Vice President Mike Pence told CBS News in an interview the United States was receiving "encouraging intelligence that Iran is sending messages" to its allied militias not to attack US targets.

But US Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he and others in the military "fully expect" Shiite militia groups in Iraq, backed by Iran, to carry out attacks against US-led forces in Iraq and Syria.

Two rockets fell on Wednesday in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, causing no casualties, the Iraqi military said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

In a letter to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, US Ambassador Kelly Craft said the killing of Soleimani was self-defense and vowed to take additional action "as necessary" in the Middle East to protect US personnel and interests.

The United States also stood "ready to engage without preconditions in serious negotiations with Iran," to maintain peace and security, she said.

On Wednesday, Trump again vowed he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and urged world powers to quit a 2015 nuclear accord with Iran that Washington abandoned in 2018 and work for a new deal, one of the issues at the heart of rising tensions between Washington and Tehran. Iran has rejected new talks.

There was no immediate reaction from Iranian officials to Trump's comments. The semi-official Fars news agency described the US president's remarks as a "big retreat from threats."

Soon after Wednesday's attacks, Trump had said on Twitter that "All is well!" and Washington was assessing damage.

That tweet and the comment by Iran's foreign minister eased some concerns about a wider war and calmed jittery financial markets. US stock prices hit record highs before paring their gains, while world oil prices, after an early spike, fell about 4%.

US and European government sources said they believed Iran had deliberately sought to avoid US military casualties in its missile strikes to prevent an escalation.

But an Iranian army spokesman denied "foreign media reports" suggesting there was some kind of coordination between Iran and the United States before the attack to evacuate bases.

Iranian television reported an official in Khamenei's office as saying the attacks were the "weakest" of several retaliation scenarios. It quoted another source saying Iran had lined up 100 other potential targets.

After the Iranian missile attack, state television showed footage of the Soleimani funeral, with hundreds of people chanting: "God is greatest" when the strikes were announced over loudspeakers. "His revenge was taken and now he can rest in peace," Iranian television said.

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A source who spoke with Deir Ezzor 24 said strong blasts were heard in the area of Al Bukamal, where Iran-backed Shiite militias are based. According to the source, the explosions were apparently caused by missile impacts.

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Other websites affiliated with Syrian opposition groups also reported airstrikes in the Al Bukamal area.

Also Monday night, meanwhile, news outlets in the war-torn country reported that a bus carrying Syrian soldiers came under machine-gun fire in eastern Deir ez-Zor. According to initial assessments, the attack was carried out by Islamic State fighters. Several Syrian soldiers were reportedly killed in the attack.

On Saturday evening, too, Arab media outlets reported a series of mysterious airstrikes in northeastern Syria, also near Al Bukamal, on multiple facilities belonging to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Shiite militias.

According to Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen TV, based in Beirut, several bases were hit in the attack, which was carried out by unidentified warplanes. Other outlets reported that several Iranian nationals were wounded in airstrikes on the Imam Ali base, Iran's flagship project in Syria.

The Imam Ali base, and the designated border crossing adjacent to it, facilitates the transfer of weapons on land from Tehran through Iraq and Syria to Beirut, relieving Iran of the need for air bases that could be neutralized in a broad Israeli airstrike. The base is slated to house a large and well-armed military force, perhaps even armed with long-range missiles.

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The study, titled "Iran's Networks of Influence in the Middle East," argues that the proxy groups Iran supports, such as Hezbollah and various Shiite militias, allow it to "influence deep into other states at relatively low cost."

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The study found that Tehran's preferred mode of operation in the Middle East is via proxy organizations in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, which it says "has consistently delivered Iran advantage without the cost or risk of direct confrontation with adversaries."

The study also claims that organizations sponsored by Iran are a more important factor to the country's military might than its ballistic missile program, its nuclear program, or its regular army.

The study says that Iran has invested a total of $16 billion in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, while sending Hezbollah $700 million annually.

The study argues that while the US and its regional allies still enjoy an advantage over Iran in terms of conventional military capabilities, Iran has more "effective force."

In addition, the study determines that despite US sanctions against Iran, Tehran has not encountered any major international opposition to its strategy, even as it faces a wave of popular unrest within Iran as well as protests in Iraq and Lebanon.

While Iran will continue to "seize opportunities" to expand its third-party capability, it must also "manage both the risk of overstretch and rejection by communities that see it as a foreign, interventionist state," the study says.

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A series of satellite images included in the report show that intensive work is ongoing, both on the base itself and on the other side of the Syria-Iraq border, near which the base is located.

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The report shows a long line of military fortifications and outposts under construction, as well as access roads and storage facilities for weapons and vehicles. The satellite pictures also show a large number of vehicles and construction equipment on the site, evidence of the effort being invested to rebuild the site after the strike.

In addition to the new construction, the ImageSat picture show construction teams near storage facilities targeted in other recent strikes, who are apparently working to repair them for future use by the Shiite militias.

The Imam Ali base, located between Al Bukamal in Syria and the Iraqi border down Al-Qa'im are part of a project by Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps known as the "green belt," whose purpose is to facilitate the transfer of militia fighters and weapons from Iran to southern Syria and Lebanon, via Iraq and Syria. The base was first attacked some two weeks ago in an airstrike that caused heavy damage to six weapons storehouses, some of which are believed to have been fully stocked.

The first airstrike is believed to have killed 18 members of Shiite militias. Two follow-up strikes at the base over the course of the past two weeks killed a combined 15 militia members, and caused additional damage to the facilities.

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