Middle East

Israel could rely on ISIS to contain Iranian expansion – Israeli intelligence-linked report

A new study from a think-tank closely affiliated with Israeli intelligence says that Islamic State attacks are among the few remaining weapons holding back an Iranian sphere of influence that could soon stretch from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean.

“Iran, which previously displayed dexterity in exploiting every opportunity to enhance its standing as a regional power, wishes to capitalize on the vacuum created in Syria and Iraq by ISIS’s collapse, to advance its ambitions in the region and play a central role in shaping the post-ISIS Middle East,” says a 37-page report by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC).

Although ostensibly an NGO, ITIC is part state-funded, has an office at the Israeli Defense Ministry, and has often served as the informal voice of the country’s intelligence services.
According to the report’s lead author, prominent Iran researcher Raz Zimmt, Tehran is seeking to stabilize the Bashar Assad regime in Syria and the Shia government in Iraq, which would help it “dislodge the US” from the region, and “escalate the threat posed to Israel, while creating a state of deterrence.”

Particularly it would use the land corridor from its own territory to Lebanon, to “augment the military capabilities of Hezbollah, developing the abilities of Hezbollah to manufacture weapons, and establishing local terror networks in the Golan Heights, with the aim of creating a new front for challenging Israel.”