An Israeli Air Force jet. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

The Israeli Army mocked a leading Iranian general on Twitter Sunday following an IAF airstrike in Syria that thwarted an attempted drone attack on Israel’s north.

“TO: Iranian Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani, RE: Last Night,” the tweet said, “’We will carry out a large-scale attack of killer drones on the ‘Zionist entity’ from Syria.’ It sounded good in your morning meeting, didn’t it?”

TO: Iranian Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani,

RE: Last Night

"We will carry out a large-scale attack of killer drones on the 'Zionist entity' from Syria."

It sounded good in your morning meeting, didn't it?

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) August 25, 2019

At the same time, details began to emerge about the background to the planned Iranian attack.

According to Israeli news website Mako, the failed attack was planned by Iranian operatives together with members of Shia militia groups. They were brought to Syria by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Force, which coordinates Iran’s terrorist operations abroad.

They arrived at Damascus airport together with the weapons and technology required to carry out the attack and were taken to the village of Aqraba.

According to the IDF, the operatives were then hidden in a private luxury villa that included a storage room, a large garden, and a swimming pool.

IDF Spokesman Ronen Manelis said that the villa belongs to the Quds Force and “that’s where the attack and other activities were planned. In addition, there is also a warehouse where the cargo is kept — all this, inside a civilian village in Syria.”

Veteran Israeli analyst Amos Yadlin said in a lengthy twitter thread that the Israeli strike proved “a wide, multi-dimensional (geographic, operational, intelligence, technological) campaign is waged in the Middle East, far beyond last night’s strike in Syria.”

“Impressive IDF Intel and AF capabilities last night. High quality RT intel along with a precise surgical operation prevented a significant attack on Israel,” he added. “I would not want to be in Qassem Suleimani’s shoes this morning.”

“Israel’s decision to take responsibility 1) signal as warning to the enemy to avoid further escalation, 2) increases readiness of our forces for an Iranian response, and 3) serves political purposes by distracting from the deteriorating security situation in Gaza and the [West Bank],” Yadlin stated.

A wide, multi-dimensional (geographic, operational, intelligence, technological) campaign is waged in the Middle East, far beyond last night’s strike in Syria.
1/6

— Amos Yadlin (@YadlinAmos) August 25, 2019

Another long-time Israeli analyst, Ehud Yaari, wrote that Israel’s “war between the wars” with Iran is “the real war,” and in this struggle, the US has chosen to take a back seat, leaving it up to Israel and its allies to do the “bulk of the work.”

“In the absence of an American willingness to act forcefully against the Iranians, Israel is in effect the ‘proxy’ of Washington,” he said, “and performs the roles that the Americans avoid.”

“Trump, with all his friendship with Israel, has left Israel alone to face the Iranians — and Tehran understands this very well,” Yaari added.

This has forced Israel to act in Iraq as well as Syria, he said, as the US is unwilling to undertake action against Iran due to the political situation in Iraq.

Nonetheless, Yaari wrote, “Airstrikes in Syria over the past three and a half years have prevented the Iranians from implementing about 80 percent of their plan to build an independent war machine on Syrian soil. But the Iranians are not stopping and do not intend to give up on [Syria].”