Israeli security sources claim that senior Iranian and Hezbollah figures killed in an airstrike in Syria this weekend were likely planning an “imminent” attack on Israel. Six Iranian army chiefs died alongside five Hezbollah militants when an Israeli helicopter fired rockets at a convoy in the Golan Heights region this past Sunday.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – General Mohammed Allahdadi, as well as commander Abu Ali Tabatabai, who is known to have worked with both Hezbollah and Iran, perished in the strike.

Former deputy head in the Israeli Defense Forces, Major General Eyal Ben Reuven accused the senior military figures of meeting to plot an attack on Israel.

Reuven added that the commanders’ decision to meet in Syria could mean that a “high-level” and “sophisticated” attack on Israel’s northern border is “imminent.”

Think tank the Israel Project came to a similar conclusion. The presence of Tabatabai, they say “probably indicates operations aimed at overrunning Israeli border towns.”

Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, warned last week that they are “ready and prepared for a confrontation in the Galilee and beyond the Galilee.”

Iran has also promised a “crushing response” to the weekend strike, without laying out exactly what action will be taken.

“These martyrdoms proved the need to stick with jihad. The Zionists must await ruinous thunderbolts,” General Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said. “The Revolutionary Guards will fight to the end of the Zionist regime… We will not rest easy until this epitome of vice is totally deleted from the region’s geopolitics.”

Marshaled along the country’s northern border, Israeli troops, as well as an Iron Dome missile launcher has been deployed to destroy any incoming rockets.

Senior Iranian politicians are incensed at the death of Allahdadi, which they confirmed yesterday, saying he had been “martyred” in the name of his country.

Officials deny that he had been planning any kind of attack. They claim he had been in Syria to advise the government on how to tackle extremists such as Islamic State, who control much of the country’s north.

Hezbollah said that Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of a prominent commander, and Mohammed Issa, who was responsible for the group’s operations in Syria and Iraq, died alongside Tabatabai.

Jihad Mughniyeh was the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah figure killed in Damascus in 2008. Hezbollah accused Israel of assassinating him, but Israel has not claimed responsibility.

http://www.catholic.org/news/international/middle_east/story.php?id=58505

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