According to Aviation Week, Syria’s “newly improved, long-range surveillance and intelligence-gathering facilities” represent an obstacle to an Israeli attack on Iran.

Focussing on the cooperation between Syria and Iran, the article states:

A collapse of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could provide enough chaos to shield a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran. Otherwise, Syria would provide early warning. (David Fulghum, Syria Key To Iranian Defenses Against West, March 6, 2012)

This supports the argument made by several independent news outlets that “the road to Tehran goes through Damascus.” According to numerous reports, the foreign-backed armed insurrection in Syria is a covert operation to topple the Syrian government, the only Iranian ally in the region. The insurrection is still upheld by the Western media as a peaceful protest movement, even though U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has admitted that Al Qaeda has integrated the ranks of the opposition. 

The Aviation Week article states that the fall of Bashar al-Assad would weaken Iran and facilitate an attack from the U.S. and Israel.

The report further states that an Israeli attack on Iran would be conducted “through Syrian, Turkish, Jordanian or Saudi airspace.”

However, Syria’s upgraded systems include electronic surveillance now covering “Israel, Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia”, as well as a radar site on Lebanon’s Mount Sannine, which “overlooks the Hezbollah- and Syrian-dominated Bekaa Valley and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.”

The upgrades, provided by Russia, will also “enable tracking of U.S. and Israeli naval and aerial movements in the eastern Mediterranean to include Cyprus (where the U.S. has its own intelligence-gathering facilities) and Greece.”

Other reports claim that British and Qatari troops established in Homs are “paving the way for an undercover Turkish military incursion” into the country. (British and Qatari troops already waging secret war in Syria?- 13 undercover French army officers seized in Syria, Lanka Newspapers, March 6, 2012.)

Julie Lévesque contributed to this report.