Israeli security and intelligence forces were watching the northern border warily on Friday as the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, released a video and statement declaring that their forces have ejected troops loyal to the regime of president Bashar Assad from a strategic military installation on the Golan Heights. The post, Tal al-Ahmar (“The Red Hill”), is in the Quneitra Governorate, which has important strategic and historic resonense for Israel, as it was in this area that Israeli and Syrian troops engaged in ferocious battles in the 1967 and ’73 wars. “It is indeed the first time that they [Islamist groups] took over an outpost of such importance and at this proximity to the Israeli border,” Rafael Green, director of the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. “According to other reports in the Arabic press, Assad forces are preparing an attempt to retake it, due to its value.” Read More
