{"id":27631,"date":"2019-01-01T08:22:50","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T08:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27631"},"modified":"2019-01-01T08:22:50","modified_gmt":"2019-01-01T08:22:50","slug":"israeli-intelligence-sees-possible-threat-from-iraq-as-irans-clout-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27631","title":{"rendered":"Israeli intelligence sees possible threat from Iraq as Iran\u2019s clout grows"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nTEL AVIV:\u00a0Iran could use its growing clout in Iraq to turn the Arab country into a springboard for attacks against Israel, the top Israeli intelligence official said on Monday.<\/p>\n

\nIsrael sees the spread of Tehran\u2019s influence in the region as a growing threat, and has carried out scores of airstrikes in civil war-torn Syria against suspected military deployments and arms deliveries by Iranian forces supporting Damascus.<\/p>\n

\nIraq, which does not share a border with Israel, is technically its enemy but was last an open threat in the 1991 Gulf War. After a US-led invasion in 2003 toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Israel has worried that the country\u2019s Shiite majority could tilt to Tehran.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIraq is under growing influence of the (covert Iranian foreign operations unit) Qods Force and Iran,\u201d Maj. Gen. Tamir Hayman, the chief of Israeli military intelligence chief, told a conference in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

\nWith US President Donald Trump signaling he sought to disengage from the region, Hayman said, the Iranians may \u201csee Iraq as a convenient theater for entrenchment, similar to what they did in Syria, and to use it as a platform for a force build-up that could also threaten the State of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nCiting Iranian, Iraqi and Western sources, Reuters reported in August that Iran had transferred short-range ballistic missiles to Shiite allies in Iraq. Baghdad denied the findings.<\/p>\n

\nThe following week, Israel said it might attack such sites in Iraq, effectively expanding a campaign now focused in Syria.<\/p>\n

\nHayman predicted 2019 would bring \u201csignificant change\u201d to Syria, whose President Bashar Assad has beaten back opposition fighters with the help of Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah reinforcements, and where Trump this month ordered a pullout of US troops.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis presence of Iran, with Syria\u2019s return to stabilization under a Russian umbrella, is something we are watching closely,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nIsrael has also been monitoring Iranian conduct since Trump quit the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran in May and reimposed US sanctions. The deal placed caps on nuclear projects with bomb-making potential, though Iran denied having such designs. Trump, with Israeli support, deemed the caps insufficient.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe assess that Iran will strive to stay within the deal but will do everything in order to find ways of circumventing the American sanctions,\u201d Hayman said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TEL AVIV:\u00a0Iran could use its growing clout in Iraq to turn the Arab country into a springboard for attacks against Israel, the top Israeli intelligence official said on Monday. Israel sees the spread of Tehran\u2019s influence in the region as a growing threat, and has carried out scores of airstrikes in civil war-torn Syria against…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}