Iran is helping fund Syrian rebels in the southern Syria border, The Wall Street Journal reports, despite the warning from Israel against those forces loyal to Iran entrenching near its border.
The funding is coming from the Iran-aligned Hezbollah, which is picking up the payments to former U.S.-backed rebels who had their funding cut by the U.S. last year, according to a former rebel commander.
Hezbollah recruitment in southern Syria is “a highly destabilizing prospect,” according to U.S. Syria Envoy Joel Rayburn.
“The idea that Hezbollah would be expanding its presence down there on the Jordanian frontier, near the Golan Heights, near the Israeli frontier – this would increase the chance for conflict,” Rayburn told a conference in Manama, Bahrain, per the report.
Hezbollah, relied upon by Syria and Russia to fight the remaining opposition in the south – mostly ISIS – is paying the rebels to switch sides.
“We are aware of regime and allied forces recruiting former opposition members in the wake of reconciliation agreements in Southern Syria,” Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Sean Robertson told the Journal.
The former rebel commander estimates 2,000 new fighters have been recruited by Hezbollah, per the Journal.
“Hezbollah and Iran understand that the winning game is the ground game: you need to embed yourself in communities, you need to build a presence and be part of the local economy and infrastructure,” senior fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies Emile Hokayem told the Journal.
“It’s not just a headache – along with Lebanon – it’s going to be the fulcrum of the next conflict.”
Source » newsmax