Published December 28,2024
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Israel reportedly engaged in secret communications with the ousted Bashar Assad’s regime lately utilizing the messaging app WhatsApp, in response to a report Friday by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
It stated Israel carried out covert operations to determine contact with Assad and his inside circle, sending messages by Israeli intelligence brokers posing as “Musa” on WhatsApp. The messages allegedly reached high-ranking officers in Damascus.
One operation reportedly sought to barter a secret deal the place Assad would halt the switch of weapons to Lebanon in trade for lifting worldwide sanctions towards his regime.
The report famous that by the top of 2019, Yossi Cohen, then-chief of Israel’s intelligence company, Mossad, was scheduled to satisfy Assad within the Kremlin. Assad, nonetheless, backed out of the assembly.
The Military Intelligence Directorate, often called Aman, allegedly despatched the messages to then-Syrian Defense Minister Ali Abbas following Israeli airstrikes on targets it claimed had been linked to Iran or Hezbollah in Syria.
Assad, Syria’s chief for almost 25 years, fled to Russia after anti-regime teams took management of Damascus on Dec. 8, ending the Baath Party’s regime, which had been in energy since 1963.
The takeover got here after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham fighters captured key cities in a lightning offensive that lasted lower than two weeks.
Israel has occupied territories in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine for many years and continues to reject calls to withdraw or to determine an unbiased Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, primarily based on pre-1967 borders.
Source: www.anews.com.tr