On Jan. 23, the Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida reported that Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), had, on Jan. 18, visited a city in southern Syria near the Syria-Israel border. By doing so, he violated the Israel-Russia-U.S. agreement that Iranian forces must stay at least 40 kilometers away from the border. The report’s headline noted that this visit is what sparked the Israel-Iran clash two days later, during which Israel attacked targets in Syria and in response Iranian forces fired a ballistic missile at Israel’s Mount Hermon ski resort in the Golan Heights.
According to the Al-Jarida report, upon his return to Iran, Soleimani briefed Iran’s Supreme National Security Council on his Syria visit and on Israel’s attack, and also said that Russia had given the Iranian forces information in advance regarding which targets Israel was about to attack—allowing them to evacuate and prevent loss of life. It also reported that at the conclusion of the meeting, the council resolved to recommend to Syria that it not hold back in responding to Israeli attacks, and that Russia be informed that Iran will respond to every Israeli attack as it sees fit.

The following are translated excerpts of the “Al-Jarida” report:
“On Jan. 18, 2019, the day of [sic] the suicide attack on U.S. troops [sic] in the northern Syrian city of Manbij, near the Turkish border,[1] IRGC Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani visited a city in southern Syria near the Israel-occupied Syrian Golan. The highly unusual visit violated the U.S.-Russia-Israel agreement, by which Damascus and Tehran also have agreed to abide, under which Iranian and Iran-backed forces in Syria would come no closer than 40 kilometers to the Syria-Israel ceasefire line in the Golan Heights.
“Al-Jarida learned from a knowledgeable source that Soleimani visited the Sunni town of Al-Ghariya Al-Sharqiya in the Dera district near the Dera-Damascus road and the Nasib border crossing with Jordan. In addition, the town is less than 40 kilometers from the ceasefire line in the Golan.
“Soleimani’s secret visit came two days before a surface-to-surface missile struck the ski resort in the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan Heights [i.e., Mount Hermon], and that Israel claimed was launched by Iranian forces, and not by forces loyal to or aligned with Iran. This [the firing of the Iranian missile] came in response to a series of Israeli attacks on several [Iranian military] positions in southern Syria where, according to reports, missiles were recently deployed by Iran.
“The source provided Al-Jarida[2] with specific details about [Soleimani’s] visit to Al-Ghariyya Al-Sharqiyya, and revealed that it lasted for two hours, from 8 to 10 p.m., and that the apartment in which the visit took place was under surveillance.
“The source also disclosed a document leaked from the Syrian Army’s Division 1 concerning how [Iranian forces and their allies] should conduct themselves with ‘allied and friendly forces in the southern region.’ This document attests to the fact that Iranian forces and their allies still remain within the strip stretching 40 kilometers [from the Israeli border], and that the Iranians are continuing, via the[se forces], to build and entrench a military presence in southern Syria that deals them a new card [to play]—the ability to open a front in the Golan Heights against Israel if [Iran] comes under attack on its soil or if an Israel-Hezbollah conflict breaks out.
“A knowledgeable source told Al-Jarida that in Tehran, the Supreme National Security Council met on the night of Monday [Jan. 21] and Tuesday [Jan. 22], and that during the meeting Soleimani presented a report on the Israeli attacks [in Syria] and on his visit to Syria, from which he had just returned.”
Full report at MEMRI.