Iran International:

Israel carried out an airstrike on a target near Damascus Thursday night, in what seems to be the first such attack since the one on Iranian consulate which led to an unprecedented escalation of hostilities between the two countries.

There has been relative calm in the past few weeks, after both Iran and Israel directly hit the other country, showing their fire power albeit in entirely different ways: Iran launching hundreds of missiles and drones to overwhelm the Israeli defense system, and Israel surgically taking out the central component of Iran’s defense system near a nuclear facility.

Both governments could claim victory and step back from the edge, momentarily perhaps, and under pressure from the United State, which is worried an all out war can break out in the region and drag in American forces.

The airstrike Thursday night had no IRGC casualties, unlike the attack on the consulate. Eight Syrian soldiers were injured in a building operated by Syrian security, according to the Syrian defense ministry. Reuters quoted a source that the site struck was not operated by Iranian units or Hezbollah – but it sat south of the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine, where Hezbollah and Iranian forces are entrenched.

That airstrike was above all a reminder that the fundamentals of power politics in the region remain the same, and another crisis could emerge at any time.

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