Kilometers from the Golan: ISIS is regrouping in southern Syria
An Alma Center report warns that ISIS is moving from hiding to establishing itself in southern Syria, near the Israeli border. According to the study, the organization is building infrastructure, utilizing smuggling routes, and could export the threat to Lebanon and Jordan.
Recent Israeli intelligence reports indicate a worrying change in ISIS activity in southern Syria. According to estimates, the organization no longer relies solely on scattered cells, but is working to create permanent operational infrastructure in the area adjacent to Israel's northern border.
A strategic document from the Alma Center for the research of security challenges in the north points out that security developments in southern Syria are creating a complex and dangerous reality. The southern districts — primarily Quneitra and Daraa — have become points of geo-strategic importance, located in close proximity to the Golan Heights and the borders with Jordan and Lebanon.
From the hiding stage to logistical establishment
The nature of recent ISIS activity indicates that the organization has moved from a stage of hiding to logistical establishment. One piece of evidence is an operation by Syrian internal security forces, which dismantled a terrorist cell in the town of Khan Arnabah, near the border area in Quneitra. The cell operated a central workshop for producing weapons, stored arms, and provided supply routes for other cells operating deep in southern Syria.
The cell operated under the leadership of a field operative who used various aliases to obscure his identity. According to the Alma Center, this indicates a high level of operational caution and deep organizational establishment within the local environment. This development goes far beyond a local security problem and could directly affect the balance of power and stability in the entire region.
"The Triangle of Death" in southern Syria
The study points to three main interconnected risks, which it describes as a "triangle of death" forming in southern Syria:
-
Proximity to Israel: The existence of operational cells capable of producing explosives a few kilometers from the Golan Heights creates a potential for security flare-ups and military provocations.
-
Weapons smuggling routes: There is a worrying connection between the environment in which ISIS cells operate and the weapons smuggling arteries that lead to Lebanon. Seizures of 122mm Grad rockets in the Arsal mountains area, as well as in Al-Hisha and Al-Hara, show that areas in Syria are used as transit routes for transferring light and medium weapons.
-
Exploitation of territory: ISIS benefits from the complex topography of the area and the fact that international attention is directed elsewhere, allowing the organization to build infrastructure far from the centers of intensive airstrikes.
The fear: The threat will leak to neighboring countries
The Alma Center warns that the continued existence of southern Syria as a logistical axis for weapons smuggling could place the entire region before dangerous scenarios. Failure to dismantle the infrastructure and block the smuggling routes could allow the threat to leak into Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel.
The center estimates that dealing with the threat cannot be limited to pinpoint actions. Southern Syria should be treated as a single geo-strategic space, where border control, dismantling terrorist infrastructure, and thwarting supply networks are part of the same campaign. The longer the security vacuum persists, the greater the chance that ISIS will turn into a stable operational infrastructure near Israel's borders.
