Israel worried about Syrian rebels' advancement to the Syrian-Israeli borders

Syrian rebels have seized shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles from regime forces in spite of Israel and the Syrian regime’s best efforts to prevent such strategic developments from happening, an Israeli commentator said.

Yossi Melman, the Israeli commentator on security and intelligence affairs for the Israeli news website Walla, revealed that Syrian rebels seized a warehouse containing Russian and Iranian shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles.

Melman affirmed that both Al-Assad’s army and the Israeli army tried their best to prevent this warehouse from falling in to rebel hands.

The senior Israeli journalist said Israel has detailed information about Syrian weapons and it is afraid that these weapons could fell in the “wrong hands”.

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post has revealed that the former CIA director and General David Petraeus issued a serious warning about the international threats posed by seizing such strategic weapons by “terrorists”. This is not only a danger for Israel, the newspaper reported him saying, but also for the US.

The newspaper also reported an American official saying that the US is not enthusiastic about toppling the Al-Assad regime as it fears jihadists might carry out attacks on Israel. The official gave the example of the American experience with Afghan fighters who the US supported to fight the Soviet Union then they fought US targets.

The Jerusalem Post also revealed that the repeated Israeli attacks against Syrian targets were aimed at preventing Syrian rebels from seizing warehouses or to destroy warehouses containing strategic weapons to stop rebels gaining control of them should the Syrian regime breakdown.

Israeli TV channel Two reported that the Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s was disappointed because some 60 per cent of Syrian land is now in the control of rebels.

Ya’alon said the rebels have achieved tactical successes and expressed his concerns that are getting closer to Israel’s borders.