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Gulf Countries Confronted by Complex Yemeni Scene that Is Run by Iran

A Yemeni government fighter fires a vehicle-mounted weapon at a frontline position during fighting against Houthis in Marib, Yemen March 28, 2021. (Reuters)
A Yemeni government fighter fires a vehicle-mounted weapon at a frontline position during fighting against Houthis in Marib, Yemen March 28, 2021. (Reuters)
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Gulf Countries Confronted by Complex Yemeni Scene that Is Run by Iran

A Yemeni government fighter fires a vehicle-mounted weapon at a frontline position during fighting against Houthis in Marib, Yemen March 28, 2021. (Reuters)
A Yemeni government fighter fires a vehicle-mounted weapon at a frontline position during fighting against Houthis in Marib, Yemen March 28, 2021. (Reuters)

The Iran-backed Houthi militias' widening of their attacks to include the United Arab Emirates reflects the losses they are incurring in their battles in Yemen, said Gulf strategic analysts.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, they said it was Iran who ordered the Houthis to carry out the attacks against the UAE, saying it was a strategic move that serves its strategic interests.

They added that the Saudi and Emirati response to the attacks was decisive, deterrent, strong and immediate, stemming from their understanding of Iran's strategic calculations and the Houthi threat.

The experts warned that the situation in Yemen is becoming increasingly complex on the political, military and humanitarian levels and that the war will not end any time soon.

They held the Houthi militias responsible politically and morally for the ongoing war because of their rejection of all peacemaking efforts.

Bin Sager: Houthis did not take military escalation decision

Chairman of the Gulf Research Center, Dr. Abdulaziz bin Sager said targeting the UAE is one of the critical strategic decisions that cannot be taken by the Houthi leadership alone, especially since it is subordinate to Iran.

Bin Sager stressed that the decision was taken by the Iranian leadership and aimed at serving its strategic interests.

There is no doubt that the Iranian calculations include the situation in Iran and the Houthis in Yemen. They also include Iran's influence in the Arab world and its regional and international relations, he went on to say.

The decision to expand the military operations in the Arabian Peninsula stems from strategic setbacks Iran has faced on several fronts, such as the Vienna nuclear talks and challenges to its influence in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, he added.

The Iranian leadership is seeking to prove that it can defy the international community, escalate its actions and take risks by expanding its attacks in the region, he explained.

By adopting this behavior, he added, Tehran is attempting to improve its negotiating position on all fronts. It is keen to prove its ability to use its regional proxies to destabilize regional and international security.

Moreover, he charged that Tehran is taking advantage of the international community's shortcomings in understanding its behavior, mindset and calculations.

Bin Sager added, however, that the recent Houthi losses in Yemen have also prompted Iran to lash out.

The militias have been suffering major losses since June 2021. They are on the verge of losing the Marib province and are now on the defense, when they used to be on the offense. The legitimate forces last month liberated the Shabwah province from the militias.

These defeats have alarmed Tehran, which is providing the Houthis with military gear and weapons, bin Sager remarked.

The Iranians are concerned that the loss of Marib will leave the ground open for the legitimate forces to advance on neighboring Sanaa, thereby threatening the Houthis' entire hold on northern Yemen.

Shulaimi: Western Countries’ Interest

President of the Gulf Security and Peace Forum Dr. Fahad al-Shulaimi echoed bin Sager's remarks that the Houthi escalation against the UAE stems from their successive defeats on several internal fronts, including Shabwah, Marib and some areas in Taiz and the al-Bayda provinces.

The Houthis believe that targeting some areas in the UAE may threaten Western interests, such as private companies and the energy market, and may eventually lead the Emirati leadership to halt its support to the southern Giants Brigades, which have dealt the Houthis a series of blows in the years-long conflict.

Furthermore, he stressed that the Houthis could not have launched the missile attacks against the UAE without Tehran's approval.

The attacks were deliberately carried out while Iran was negotiating with world powers in Vienna, he continued. Iran is trying to give off the impression that should the talks fails, it can "blow up" the region through its proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen and Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.

Dr. Fawaz: Military operations expand and continue

Saudi Strategic and Security Analyst Dr. Fawaz bin Kasib al-Anzi told Asharq Al-Awsat that this wasn't the first time that the Houthis attempted to widen their terrorist operations by launching drone and missile attacks against the UAE.

He revealed that the militias had targeted the UAE with missiles and armed drones since the launch of the military operations in Yemen in 2016.

The attacks stopped eventually, but resumed when the UAE announced its support for the Giants Brigades, which have the proven experience to defeat the Houthis, he added.

The militias have opted to meet escalation with escalation, he stated.

The Giants Brigades achieved significant goals in Shabwah and Marib through direct support from the UAE, prompting the Houthis to retaliate by threatening the Gulf country. He predicted that the Houthi escalation will continue and so will the Giants Brigades operations that have been supported by Yemeni tribes and the Saudi-led Arab coalition.

Fawaz also highlighted the disappearance of Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi from the political and media scenes in Yemen and the death of Iran's so-called ambassador to Sanaa, Hassan Irloo, who was the effective Iranian commander of the Houthi battles.

These developments have had a massive impact on the morale of the militias, said Yemeni analysts.

The coalition forces must take advantage of this situation to strike more victories, urged Fawaz.

Response to Houthi attack

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are in agreement over the strategic threat the situation in Yemen poses to the whole Arabian Peninsula, said bin Sager. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries will not be spared the risks should the Houthis continue to control Yemen and Iran continue to control the Houthis.

Common risks often lead to unity among those threatened by them, he added.

The Saudi and Emirati leaderships believe that they share a common destiny since the Iranian-Houthi threat is an expansionist risk that is not limited to one country, but covers the entire region.

The Saudi and Emirati decision to defy the Iranian-Houthi threats in Yemen demonstrates that their leaderships have adopted long-term strategic calculations, he continued.

"Ignoring the fact that the Houthi militias illegally seized power in Yemen and that they are gangs that follow the orders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and are crucially linked to the Iranian support and strategy will have a great and long-term impact on the security and stability of the GCC countries," bin Sager warned.

He said it will also affect the freedom and independence of all countries of the region and the GCC states’ political decisions and sovereign rights and turn Yemen into a hub for Iranian aggression and threats in the heart of the Arabian Peninsula.

Bin Sager underscored the importance of deriving lessons from what happened in Lebanon.

"The indifference and failure in confronting the growing influence and control of the Lebanese Hezbollah militias over the ruling authority in Lebanon has turned them into a regional power that interferes and threatens the entire security and stability of the Arab Mashreq region in service of the IRGC and the strategic interests of the expansionist colonial Persian Empire," he noted.

Shulaimi warned that by attacking the UAE, the Houthis may even go further and target other Gulf countries.

Meanwhile, Fawaz expected Saudi Arabia and the UAE to continue their operations in Yemen especially amid the growing political support and changing international position towards the Houthis.

He cited last year's Houthi attack on the American embassy in Sanaa and US President Joe Biden stating in January that his administration was reconsidering restoring the terrorist designation of the Houthis.

These developments will no doubt lead to more pressure on the Houthi militias in the coming period.

How GCC states should address the situation in Yemen

The GCC states still do not acknowledge the dangers and threats posed by Iran’s meddling and expansionist policy, bin Sager lamented.

He pointed to the long-term threats posed by Iran's policies of establishing and supporting armed sectarian militias, weakening official state authorities and creating a state within the state in countries where it wields influence. He noted its undermining of the identity and religious and national loyalties of Arabs by deepening their sectarian affiliation to serve its interests at the expense of their national ones.

Bin Sager expressed regret that some Arab and Gulf states have adopted lenient and perhaps reckless positions towards Iran’s regional policy and have avoided condemning its expansionist and intrusive behavior.

This is both alarming and disappointing, he said.

He said the GCC states, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, believe and have publicly declared that the Yemeni conflict should be settled politically and through negotiations.

After successive negotiations with the Houthis, they have come to realize that the militias' real and final decision-making comes from Iran, he continued.

Iran's interest lies in sabotaging any solution or political settlement in Yemen if they undermine its strategic interests, he remarked.

Therefore, the Gulf countries must take a firm and united stance that reflects their deep understanding of the crisis in Yemen. They must adopt a practical policy and stances that reflect their actual understanding of the extent of the threat posed by the conflict in Yemen, he urged.

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Syria’s New Army: Renaming Units or Institutional Restructuring?

A military parade during a graduation ceremony for personnel of the Syrian army’s 56th Division on June 1, 2025. (Defense Ministry)
A military parade during a graduation ceremony for personnel of the Syrian army’s 56th Division on June 1, 2025. (Defense Ministry)
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Syria’s New Army: Renaming Units or Institutional Restructuring?

A military parade during a graduation ceremony for personnel of the Syrian army’s 56th Division on June 1, 2025. (Defense Ministry)
A military parade during a graduation ceremony for personnel of the Syrian army’s 56th Division on June 1, 2025. (Defense Ministry)

Syria's drive to build a national army has entered its most difficult phase: dismantling the armed factions that were formally absorbed into the Defense Ministry after the fall of Bashar al-Assad but retained their commanders, local loyalties, and financial networks.

The first stage of the process grouped more than 100 former factions into about 22 army divisions, according to Syrian reporting. That created a formal chain of command without fully eliminating the organizations that had fought the war. In practice, some units remained closely tied to their former leaders, strongholds, and economic interests.

Damascus is now reassigning commanders and fighters, changing deployments, and placing divisions under a proposed five-corps structure divided by region. The objective is to prevent former factions from operating as power blocs inside the army and to make military decisions answerable to the state.

That arrangement, however, did not end factionalism. It was the first stage of a difficult integration process.

The factions adopted new labels, including divisions and brigades, within the ministry's new structure, but did not fully shed their old organizations or the networks of influence and loyalty they had built during the war.

In many cases, they remained tied to their former strongholds, loyal to their commanders and connected to economic, administrative, and social networks.

The process, therefore, resembled the grouping of factions under one umbrella more than the creation of a unified institutional army.

Dismantling factional blocs

Damascus later moved into a clearer second phase of rebuilding the military: reorganizing units, combining them into new formations, and dismantling factional blocs from within.

This more sensitive phase seeks to break up the power blocs inherited by the new army. Personnel have been reassigned across formations to limit groups’ ability to retain their old structures or to recreate separate centers of influence within the military.

Sources who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat said this was among the most difficult stages of restructuring the army.

The challenge was no longer simply to bring factions into an entity called the army, but to "clip the factions' wings inside that army." Some factions that became Defense Ministry divisions after Assad's fall retained their organizational cohesion and regional character.

Loyalty to commanders also endured to varying degrees, alongside financial, administrative, and social networks built over more than a decade.

An unfinished transition

The process has not reached its final goal. Some army divisions still retain elements of their previous structures, while plans continue to redistribute them, appoint new commanders, and change their deployment areas and missions.

The Syrian army is therefore caught between two models: the limited administrative absorption of factions that followed Assad's fall, and an institutional army in which factional and regional loyalties disappear and the chain of command and military decisions are tied to the Syrian state.

An informed source told Asharq Al-Awsat that "the Syrian state is completing the compulsory integration of all factions and weakening the sources of power they enjoyed in recent years."

The source said the step was essential because Damascus could not establish a unified army or a stable state without it.

The source, who asked not to be named, said the recent dismantling of military blocs included Jaysh al-Islam, which was folded into the 70th Division, as well as the Sultan Suleiman Shah group, commonly known as al-Amshat, the Hamza Division and Ahrar al-Sharqiya.

Similar moves had already affected Ahrar al-Sham and the Levant Front, the source said. Those cohesive factions held economic and regional interests, but President Ahmed al-Sharaa's administration had gradually and quietly dismantled them, reducing their weight within the army.

Factions inside the state

The central task now is to restructure the security and military institutions after the factions joined them, and then dismantle factional structures within the Syrian state.

Some factions remain in the army, but most formations that belonged to the former Syrian National Army have been dismantled, the source said. The Syrian Free Army, a former key US ally based at al-Tanf near the Jordanian border, is also being dismantled, according to the source.

The source said al-Sharaa's administration was fully coordinating with Türkiye and the United States to break up factions within the new army.

Figures such as Abu Amsha, Hatem Abu Shaqra, and Saif Bakour Bolad were Turkish allies, and officials had once expected that sidelining them might prompt Ankara to object. The opposite occurred, the source said, with Türkiye now supporting the dismantling of groups it had previously backed.

HTS in the new structure

Despite efforts to integrate the factions and build a cohesive military, the source said the final structure of the army and security services was intended to keep officers and commanders from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, as well as prominent former Nusra Front commanders, in key command and decision-making posts.

The source said defected officers and leaders of dissolved factions who were appointed to new positions would ultimately report to an HTS figure.

The source described the approach as logical during a sensitive period in which the state faced major internal and external challenges. Political action required a solid core and internal cohesion, the source said, arguing that institutions would remain vulnerable to infiltration and internal rivalry unless the authorities could rely on pivotal military and security decisions.

The commanders' account

Colonel Abdul Muti al-Halabi, a commander in the new Syrian army who was formerly among the Nusra Front's senior ranks, told Asharq Al-Awsat that dismantling the factions was "not aimed at anyone" but was "an existential necessity for building a real military institution."

Keeping factions together as cohesive blocs inside the army would preserve multiple loyalties within the institution, threatening military and security decisions and leaving the state fragile, he said.

"We cannot build a national army if every group continues to regard itself as an independent entity with its own economy and loyalties," Halabi said, adding that the state was reassigning commanders and personnel.

Halabi disputed reports that corps commanders were being selected exclusively from HTS. He said HTS was the first group to dissolve itself and merge into the state, and that it had more organizational, security and administrative experience than other factions. It had governed Idlib, managed complex security operations and developed the ability to control territory and institutions, he said.

"If we kept the previous arrangement, regional sensitivities and old loyalties would return," Halabi said. "At this stage, we want a unified, solid leadership that is not subject to rival pressures, with everyone taking part without discrimination."

Five corps and expected changes

Rashid Hourani, a military affairs specialist at the Jusoor Center for Studies, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the new structure would probably retain a five-corps model, although commanders, troop composition, deployment areas and operational duties could change.

The previous phase had shown the need to make the formations more mobile in responding to internal and external threats, he said. The next structure could therefore change commanders and adapt each corps' methods to its assigned mission.

Hourani said the reorganization was part of a broader effort to rebuild the Syrian army and develop its working methods for the state's next phase.

Syrian news outlets reported that the proposed arrangements would place the eastern corps under Brigadier General Ahmed Mohammed al-Jassem, known as Abu Mohammed Shoura, whose name had previously been associated with command of the 66th Division.

Other reports said Brigadier General Awad al-Jassem, known as Abu Qutaiba al-Shami and previously linked to the 60th Division, would command the northern region as its four divisions were reorganized.

Some sources named Brig. Gen. Haitham al-Ali, known as Abu Muslim Afes, as the prospective commander of the central corps. Other reports said the Damascus corps would be led by Brigadier General Omar Mohammed Jaftashi, known as Mukhtar al-Turki, who currently commands the Damascus Division.

Local platforms reported that Brig. Gen. Munir al-Sheikh, known as Abu Osama, would oversee the western region and the coast through a corps comprising four recently reorganized divisions.

The problem of more radical factions

Halabi said the state was dealing carefully with more radical factions and would distribute their personnel among the corps to prevent them from forming blocs inside the army.

"These factions have important combat experience, but they must operate within an institution, not with the mentality of a group or organization," he said. "They will therefore be distributed carefully among the corps so that they are absorbed into the new military structure."

The main challenge was to move from a factional mentality to a state mentality, Halabi said.

Hourani said foreign fighters, including Turkistanis and others, had joined the army, particularly the 84th Division, and were in principle subject to the same military rules and laws as other units.

"Foreign Islamist groups joined the army, particularly the 84th Division, and the rules that apply to all military units now apply to them," he said. "Any violations are handled under the military law in force."

Asked whether international demands could lead to further moves against radical factions inside military formations, Hourani said the issue would remain part of the army-building process and its effort to draw lessons from earlier phases. He said two main considerations governed the matter, but the source text did not specify them.

How the factions view restructuring

Hourani said factions that joined the Defense Ministry understood the difference between formations created during the campaign to overthrow Assad and the requirements of an army operating through state institutions.

The factions had largely accepted integration even though Western reports warned about the method and its effects, he said. Their shared objective had eased the task and allowed the army formation to proceed smoothly.

Hourani said the continued presence of some commanders associated with particular factions reflected the experience accumulated by HTS's military wing before Assad's fall.

HTS's military wing had developed substantially in training, organization and methods of warfare, and the leadership now wanted to use that experience, he said.

Syrian Turkish coordination and a US role

Hourani said Syrian-Turkish military coordination was public and included organization and training, as reflected in repeated visits by senior military officials from both countries.

He said Washington had accepted that cooperation. He also referred to US congressional scrutiny of the Syrian government's counterterrorism performance as part of the consideration of future security cooperation.

Türkiye's aims

Hourani said Türkiye's role in building the Syrian army served objectives tied to Turkish national security as well as Ankara's political and military position in Syria and the region.

He said the aims included building a unified Syrian army that would prevent separatist entities from threatening Türkiye, citing the former presence of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in eastern Syria.

He also cited Türkiye's desire to strengthen its political and military influence, draw on its experience training armed forces in African states and support a Syrian administration it had backed during the uprising.

Building an army rather than merely merging factions

Syria's military restructuring shows that Damascus faces a challenge that goes beyond merely placing former armed factions under the Defense Ministry. It must also end their ability to operate as independent blocs within the armed forces.

The first phase brought factions under the state umbrella. The current phase focuses on dismantling their internal structures, reassigning personnel and commanders, and adjusting deployments and missions to prevent regional and factional loyalties from re-emerging.

Military officials say the goal is a unified army for all Syrians. Questions remain, however, about the authority that figures drawn from HTS will retain, the doctrine of the new military and the limits of Turkish and international influence over its development.

The restructuring is ultimately a test of whether Syria's new state can move from an alliance of victorious factions to a military institution subordinate to the state. The process remains unfinished, and its outcome will help shape Syria's government and security.

Features

US Air Force Pilot Recounts Survival After Jet Shot Down Over Iran Mountains

A US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft. (US Air Force/Reuters)
A US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft. (US Air Force/Reuters)
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US Air Force Pilot Recounts Survival After Jet Shot Down Over Iran Mountains

A US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft. (US Air Force/Reuters)
A US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft. (US Air Force/Reuters)

A US Air Force colonel recounted on Monday his story of survival after his F-15E fighter jet was shot down over Iran in April, in the early months of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran.

The aviator, who broke his back, an arm and a shoulder after hitting the ground at such high speed, hid and survived 50 hours behind enemy lines before his rescue.

He spoke on CBS News about the incident and was referred to as Bravo, his mission call sign, due to security threats.

Bravo was the backseater, the weapons-systems officer on a two-man crew with the mission call sign Dude 44. The pilot was Alpha.

CBS News asked Admiral Brad Cooper, US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief, what brought the fighter jet to a mountainous area south of the city of Isfahan, close to where Iran had been keeping much of its highly enriched nuclear material.

“Their mission that evening was to conduct a strike on industrial facilities related to both the drone and the missile program, not related to the Isfahan nuclear facility,” Cooper said.

The plane's mission call sign was DUDE 44. It was an F-15E, a type of two-seat fighter that's been a workhorse of US air combat operations for decades. The $30 million jet was brought down by a shoulder-fired missile that can cost around $100,000.

Moments of terror

In his first public account of what happened, Bravo said when the missile hit, it was as “getting hit by a freight train.”

He and Alpha did everything they could to try to save the fighter jet. It quickly became clear the plane couldn't be saved, so the pair ejected.

The US aviator free-fell to the ground at an estimated 110-160 kilometers per hour; the Iranian shoulder-fired missile had damaged his parachute.

“At one point when I looked up and saw no parachute, that was the most terrifying thing I've ever seen,” Bravo said in his first public account of what happened. “So I paused, right then, and I prayed, ‘Lord, your will be done. But if I'm getting through this, I need help.’”

Help took two days to come. Bravo hid and survived two days behind enemy lines before his rescue. He calls it a “modern-day miracle.”

Learning of the downed crew in the US

Back in the United States, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was woken in the middle of the night with the news. He said he immediately jumped to the next steps: asking if the crew was OK, and whether Iran knew what had happened.

“Whether they're alive or not, we're going to go get them,” he said.

Evidence of the wreckage was shared by Iranian media, and videos emerged online of armed groups hunting for the downed crew. According to US military sources, Iranians got to within a few hundred meters of Bravo.

Six hours in, the US was able to rescue Alpha in a risky daytime raid. American helicopters in the rescue force took fire.

“It was a gun fight all the way in and all the way out,” Hegseth said. “But they got Alpha back.”

The job was only half done. Alpha's rescue force was unable to find Bravo and withdrew.

But as night fell on that first day in Iran, Bravo was able to send a message back home.

A rescue force was almost sent in not long after, but Hegseth said “it just didn't line up.”

“That was a really tough decision,” he said. “I'll never forget, you know, being in the situation room and saying, ‘OK, I guess we're gonna roll 24,’ which means, ‘Hey, Bravo's going to be out there for basically 24 hours more.’”

CIA played pivotal role in rescue

The CIA played a pivotal role in Bravo's rescue. The agency launched a multi-pronged deception campaign to confuse Iranian forces looking for Bravo. It also used top-secret technology to pinpoint Bravo's location.

To clear the way for Bravo's rescue, newly declassified video shows American bombers and drones hit Iran's Revolutionary Guard forces nearby where he was hiding. Then it was time to go back in for Bravo.

There were over 90 US service members on the ground — the first US boots on the ground in Iran in 46 years, Cooper said. Several hundred people were in the air, and several thousand served as support in the rescue mission.

Bravo said it was “one of the greatest moments of my life” when he saw his rescuers.

But Bravo and the others on the ground were not yet out of danger. The rescue planes' landing gear was stuck in the desert sand of the makeshift airstrip. The planes could not take off, and more than 90 of what Cooper described as the military's “most elite service members” were stuck until a clandestine Air Force unit came to the rescue.

The US destroyed the two marooned aircraft, worth about $100 million each, as well as the Little Bird helicopters, so the technology wouldn't fall into Iranian hands.

Fifty hours after being shot down, Bravo was safe. Not long after leaving Iran, Bravo called his wife back home in the US.

“I was really proud of her and grateful for the strength that she showed,” Bravo said.

The officer says he wants the American people to know that the rescue is about more than what he went through.

Alpha, who ejected safely and was rescued before Bravo, is already back flying for the Air Force.

“I am still in awe of the professionalism and tactical prowess of the Combat Search and Rescue specialists and the Joint Force who executed the rescue missions of me and DUDE 44 Bravo, both those in theater and behind the scenes,” Alpha said in a statement. “Words cannot capture how thankful my family and I are and how proud I am to serve alongside each and every one of them.”

Features

Where Does Israel’s Destruction of Underground Hezbollah Base Leave the Group?

Destroyed stones on the top of Ali al-Taher ridge, which Israeli forces captured after fighting with Hezbollah and where the Israeli military said it blew up a network of Hezbollah tunnels Thursday night near Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (AP)
Destroyed stones on the top of Ali al-Taher ridge, which Israeli forces captured after fighting with Hezbollah and where the Israeli military said it blew up a network of Hezbollah tunnels Thursday night near Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (AP)
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Where Does Israel’s Destruction of Underground Hezbollah Base Leave the Group?

Destroyed stones on the top of Ali al-Taher ridge, which Israeli forces captured after fighting with Hezbollah and where the Israeli military said it blew up a network of Hezbollah tunnels Thursday night near Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (AP)
Destroyed stones on the top of Ali al-Taher ridge, which Israeli forces captured after fighting with Hezbollah and where the Israeli military said it blew up a network of Hezbollah tunnels Thursday night near Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (AP)

Israel's demolition on Thursday of a tunnel network used by Hezbollah as a command center in southern Lebanon, near the border, represents a significant setback for the Iran-backed group.

Experts said that while Hezbollah is far from defeated, the group was now exposed after two fierce wars with Israel in which it suffered major blows including the loss of much of its top leadership and Israel's occupation of parts of southern Lebanon.

- How big of a blow is it? -

A week after capturing the site, the Israeli military on Thursday demolished the tunnels in the Ali al-Taher ridge with huge explosions. The United States Geological Survey reported a 4.1 magnitude tremor in the area.

Hezbollah never acknowledged losing the strategic highland, which lies around 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border with Israel and overlooks the major city of Nabatieh.

The Israeli military previously said that the network comprised tunnels containing dozens of Iranian-made rockets, missiles and drones, as well as other weapons.

Experts say the tunnels, built over two decades, connected a network of villages in the area, and that the Israeli military now had easy access to Nabatieh, where Hezbollah holds sway.

"This is a major loss, they cannot make another (headquarters) like it for decades to come," Khalil Gemayel, a retired Lebanese general told AFP.

"Hezbollah is now exposed in the area around the ridge," he added.

Reacting to the tunnels' destruction on Friday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said: "Now there is a strong security zone, stronger than ever before, which protects the communities from attack and direct fire, and enables us to maintain control and threaten Hezbollah deep inside the area".

- Is Hezbollah militarily defeated? -

While a significant moment, Gemayel believed that "losing Ali al-Taher does not mean Hezbollah is broken".

Israel occupies a swathe of southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah built a now-dismantled network of tunnels near the border.

The group still maintains its major positions in Iqlim al-Tuffah -- a higher-altitude part of the south further away from Israel -- in the Jezzine highlands elsewhere in the south and in the Bekaa region in Lebanon's east and northeast.

"The facilities present in Iqlim al-Tuffah are bigger than (Ali al-Taher)," according to Gemayel.

But Hezbollah no longer has a weapons supply route through Syria, where the new authorities there are hostile to the group.

Military expert Hassan Jouni also said that "the fact that Hezbollah did not carry out a major operation in Ali al-Taher to defend it is a sign of weakness".

Hezbollah has not claimed any attacks on Israel and its troops since June 20 while Lebanon reports regular, sometimes deadly Israeli strikes despite a months-long truce.

Israel has accused the group of attacks on its troops in that time.

- Where does the group stand now? -

Hezbollah twice sparked wars with Israel in recent years, the first time with its attacks in support of Hamas during the Gaza war, and the second in March in support of Iran.

Jouni said that while "Hezbollah lost a solid, fortified defensive base" when Israel took Ali al-Taher, "it is not a devastating setback".

"It has gone through unprecedented setbacks before the issue of Ali al-Taher, especially with the assassinations and the (Israeli army)'s ability to occupy a vast area" of southern Lebanon, he said.

During these wars, Hezbollah lost several of its top commanders, including its former chief, while an Israeli operation in September 2024 saw hundreds of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies explode, paralyzing the group's communication systems while killing dozens and wounding thousands.

More than 8,900 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since 2023, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Hezbollah does not disclose how many fighters it has lost, but most people killed in the war have been adult men.

On top of these setbacks, Hezbollah is also dealing with a Lebanese president and prime minister who have vowed to disarm it.

The group's weapons have long been a point of contention in the country, with critics accusing it of using them to support Iran's regional agenda to the detriment of Lebanon.

Hezbollah is also facing some scrutiny from its core support base, the Shiite community.

In online petitions posted earlier this month, hundreds of Lebanese public figures, including legal experts and human rights advocates, called for Lebanon's army to be deployed in Nabatieh and Tyre, two of southern Lebanon's largest cities.

"This city does not belong to any political group," said the signatories in the Nabatieh petition, referring to Hezbollah.