Following the IDF’s announcement the night before last (September 3) that it had brought the Lebanese Ali Tacher mountain range and the underground facilities built there by Hezbollah “under full operational control,” the picture regarding the situation in the area remains contradictory.
Yesterday (September 4), Hezbollah issued a statement denying that the mountain range had been captured by Israel, arguing that if such a thing had indeed happened, then the IDF would have released videos and photos of the mountain range and the organization’s underground facilities—which did not happen.
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Of great interest is the report broadcast on Israeli state television’s main evening news program tonight, stating that well-informed military sources report that “following the operation in the Ali Tacher mountain range, the IDF decided to reduce its presence in Lebanon” and that a portion of its forces is set to return to Israel.
Equally interesting is the silence Iran has maintained since the night before last regarding the issue of the Lebanese mountain range. In contrast, on the morning of September 3, Iranian officials, speaking to the international news agency Reuters on condition of anonymity, reported that officials from the Revolutionary Guards are also present at the underground facilities maintained by Hezbollah in the Ali Taher mountain range. The same Iranian sources were reported to have warned Washington as early as mid-August through the government of Oman that if Israel were to seize the mountain range, then Iran would launch a broad-scale attack against Israel and that the Tehran regime would no longer be bound by the terms of the U.S.-Iran interim agreement signed in Islamabad.
At the same time, silence prevails on the part of Washington, which appears to have no desire to see the interim agreement it signed with Iran in Islamabad collapse in any way.
Taking all these factors into account, and in light of tonight’s news that the Israeli army will reduce its presence in southern Lebanon “following its operation in the Ali Taher mountain range,” we conclude that a chess game is currently underway, with precise moves by Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, and the U.S.
Everyone is watching everyone else to see how they will handle this sensitive situation, with all of them keeping in mind that September 11 is approaching, the anniversary of the deadly Al-Qaeda terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in 2001.
However, as Gabriel Charitos, ALPHA Cyprus’s Middle East analyst, pointed out, this year’s September 11 anniversary coincides with the celebration of the Jewish New Year—a fact that makes this date even more symbolic, which must be handled with particular care so as not to trigger further tensions in the Middle East.
