Two targeted killings by Israel in Syria and Lebanon. Then the massacre among Iranian believers in Kerman, whose perpetrators are not yet known. The bomb attack on a Shiite militia barracks in Baghdad on Thursday. Different events with a common point: the target is the Axis of Resistance, the Iranian-led operation made up of various Middle Eastern factions.
The attack on Damascus
Three rockets killed Sayed Moussawi, the commander of the Iranian Pasdaran in Syrian territory. Key figure in supporting the regime and guerrilla groups deployed against the Jewish state or other opponents, from the Islamic State to the Sunni insurgents. The officer then ensured the management of the arms transport (including for the Lebanese Hezbollah), the bases and the increasingly organized, anywhere-deployable armed forces. The attack, attributed to the Israelis, eliminated a key figure in the regional system that supports Tehran and protects its local agenda.
The attack on Beirut
Three rockets killed Saleh al Arouri, Hamas' political and operational chief. For many experts, he was the link to the Pasdaran Qods Department and other friendly formations, he had influence on cells in the West Bank, he oscillated between the two souls of the party (leadership in Gaza and Diaspora), he dealt with the military aspects, as he had followed the emergence of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the movement's powerful armed wing. A “twin” of Mousavi, another link in the iron belt, accompanied by the prestige that has been consolidated over the years between Turkey, Qatar and Lebanon.
In the final phase, he had intensified cooperation with the leaders of Hezbollah (and Tehran), thus overcoming old tensions that had arisen from the civil war in Syria. The details of his ending are interesting. According to rumors, he was killed on the eve of a meeting with Hassan Nasrallah, which was not just a polite conversation, but also important issues. Hezbollah would have warned him of the dangers, but al Arouri strangely met with some leaders in an apartment that Hamas had vacated for security reasons after October 7. He feared he might be a target. Three “holes”, the traces of the rockets, were found in the building, the Lebanese newspaper al Akhbar reported. Two would have pierced as many ceilings, small and powerful devices designed to contain the impact.
The attack on Baghdad
An airstrike (it is not clear by whom) caused heavy casualties among officers of an Iraqi militia. We are always in the same “field” of antagonistic realities that operate autonomously or within the “cartel” known as the Islamic Resistance. Shiite fighters allied with Iran, initiators of anti-American missions, recently protagonists of an attempted drone attack on Israel.
The Kerman massacre
Two bombs, probably activated by radio control. Dozens of victims. The Iranian regime blames Israel and the US, the hypothesis of an action by internal enemies and the Islamic State cannot be ruled out, while observers are cautious. Whoever planted the booby traps still chose a symbolic date and location: the ceremonies in Kerman, Iran, at the mausoleum dedicated to Qasem Soleimani, which was shot down by a US drone in Baghdad on January 3, 2020. The general was the architect who “thought” the axis of resistance alongside the Pasdaran Qods Division. But he has also become a historic opponent of the caliphate's jihadists.
If Tehran has expanded its influence from the Mediterranean to the Houthis' Yemen, it is also thanks to him, a character with a “long vision”, a strategist but also a comrade-in-arms willing to be at the front. And his death has not stopped the plans of his successor Ismael Qaani, less charismatic for some but capable of leading the apparatus in a dramatic international phase.
The conditions for a continuous, obvious and creeping war are now present, through attacks and ambushes, clear and other unclear events, special operations and provocations, including interventions to seize the moment without taking responsibility for an act.