Recent reports have named a previously unknown senior officer working in Syria on behalf of the Iranian Quds Force, Israel’s Kan news reported on Thursday.
The report, citing an Arabic report by the United States-based Alhura Arabic-language media report, comes a day after Saudi media outlets said Syrian President Bashar Assad was involved in the ejection of the Iranian Quds Force Commander in Syria, Jawad Ghafari.
The newly named officer is reportedly Ali Asaf, is a Lebanese national who in the past has been identified as a Hezbollah operative and “today works for the Islamic Republican Guards Corps-Quds Force on Syrian soil,” Kan stated.
According to Alhura, Iranian elements have been smuggling weapons into Asaf’s possessions so that he could stand up militias with rockets in areas including Aleppo, northern Syria, Tadmor, central Syria and Damascus to use them for future attacks on Israel.
According to Saudi publications Al Arabiya and Al Hadath, Assad asked the Iranian regime to withdraw Asaf’s predecessor, Ghafari, due to the “overactivity” of the Quds Force in Syria, which Assad considered to be a breach of sovereignty in multiple sectors.
