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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
IDF is taking Ali al Taher superfortress in Lebanon
2026-09-04
[X]
…Hezbollah infrastructure built over two decades with Iranian funding and planning, containing command centers, weapons stores and living quarters.

Israel says its 36th Division established operational control above and below ground and cleared two underground complexes, with Hezbollah fighters either killed or forced to flee.

The stakes are particularly high because Reuters sources said more than a dozen IRGC personnel, including at least two senior officers, had been inside. Israeli military sources dispute that claim.

Iran had reportedly warned through Oman that a full Israeli assault would trigger a large-scale Iranian response. Israel went ahead anyway
[presumably because the IDF felt the IRGC was too scared].
A fortress Iran helped fund and build for 20 years has fallen.

Now the question is whether the Islamic Republic will enforce the red line it publicly drew around it.

Courtesy of badanov:
Israeli 36th Division cleared two underground routes in the area of the Ali Taher ridge within the security zone


Translated Text:

The IDF officially lifts the ambiguity surrounding the Ali Taher ridge and announces: "We have completed the purification of Hezbollah's underground infrastructure in the Ali Taher ridge and are working to neutralize it.

Forces of the 36th Division recently operated to purify two underground routes in the area of the Ali Taher ridge within the security zone. The forces achieved operational control in the ridge area above and below ground and purified the area of terrorists, with some eliminated and others fleeing the area.

The operation to neutralize the underground infrastructure that was purified of terrorists is still ongoing. Upon completion of the operation, the IDF will prepare for renewed defense in accordance with the situation assessment.

The terrorists who were in the infrastructure carried out terror plots against the State of Israel and IDF forces. As a result of the operation in the routes in recent weeks, the ability to execute terror plots against civilians of the State of Israel and IDF forces from within the routes has been neutralized.

In the underground infrastructure were found command centers, ammunition storage rooms, generator rooms, living quarters, showers, and a kitchen that enabled the terrorists to conduct the fighting and stay there for extended periods. This is a strategic infrastructure that was built over two decades, funded and planned by the Iranian terror regime.

IDF forces continue to operate to purify the security zone in southern Lebanon and will not allow the Hezbollah terror organization to advance terror plots against them.

Any attempt at action by the Hezbollah terror organization against IDF forces will be met with force. The IDF continues to be committed to the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon.

More:
The capture of the dugout base of the Badar unit within the Ali al-Tahir ridge is a blow to Hezbollah's military capabilities in the south of the country


Translated Text:

The capture of the dugout base of the Badar unit within the Ali al-Tahir ridge is a blow to Hezbollah's military capabilities in the south of the country, but also a severe morale injury to Hezbollah. Israel's many attempts to capture the base that failed turned the fighters inside the base into a legend among the public that supports Hezbollah, and in fact the only point that Hezbollah succeeded in defending. Many memes of Hezbollah supporters used the name of the Ali al-Tahir ridge (the pure one) to assertively declare that it would remain pure (without Israeli presence).

Here is a song by one of Hezbollah's singers, Yusuf Saad al-Aamili, that was published during the period of the siege on the dugout base in the ridge. The song is interesting in my opinion because it demonstrates how Hezbollah interpreted the steadfast stand inside this base as proof that the militia is strong enough to succeed in causing Israel to withdraw from other points it captured.

More at the link

Published before the action, making it now background:
Iran warned US against Israeli attack on south Lebanon ridge held by Hezbollah

[IsraelTimes] Officials say over a dozen Revolutionary Guard members are holed up with Hezbollah men in besieged Ali Taher Ridge, where IDF says Lebanese terror group has key underground command center

Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
has warned the United States that it would respond forcefully to any Israeli offensive on a mountainous ridge in southern Leb
...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects....
 where Iranian military personnel are holed up alongside Hezbollah fighters, three officials briefed on the message told Rooters.

The message, delivered last month, highlights Iran’s continued direct involvement in the ground fighting in southern Lebanon and its readiness to retaliate against Israeli attacks there as the regional war enters its seventh month.

Defense Minister Israel Katz, meanwhile, said an Iranian attack on Israel would "free [the IDF] from all constraints," and that in such a scenario, the military would "strike all infrastructure — including energy infrastructure — and return Iran to the Stone Age and darkness."

Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, is believed to have built an underground command center and weapons stores within the Ali Taher ridge, which has a commanding view of southeastern Lebanon, according to Lebanese security sources, and has become one of the most contested pieces of ground in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

According to the IDF, Hezbollah has a "strategic" underground facility beneath the hill, and that underground site is the "nerve center" of the terror group’s Badr regional division.

Hezbollah has said in public statements that it controls the hill and will confront any Israeli advances. Its officials have referred to a "facility" there, but have declined to provide details.

The Israeli military has taken swaths of territory to Ali Taher’s south and has identified the ridge as one of its "primary operational focuses" in public statements.

In its message to Washington, Tehran threatened that any full-fledged Israeli offensive on the ridge would be met with a large-scale Iranian attack, said the three officials in the region, who spoke to Rooters on condition of anonymity.

Hezbollah declined to comment on whether Iranian forces were present in Ali Taher. In response to Rooters questions about the message, or whether the US had put pressure on Israel not to attack Ali Taher, a White House official said, "This is not accurate."

IRGC FORCES HOLED UP, OFFICIALS SAY
Two of the officials said the message was delivered via Oman, which has played a mediating role. Those two regional officials, briefed by Tehran, said over a dozen members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, including at least two senior officers, were with Hezbollah fighters.

The third source, a foreign official with direct knowledge of the message, said it was delivered around mid-August and that as a result of US pressure, Israel had put off storming Ali Taher.

There was no immediate comment from Iran’s permanent mission in Geneva, the US Defense Department, or Oman’s foreign ministry. The Israeli military declined to comment.

Contacted by Rooters, Hezbollah’s media office neither confirmed nor denied Iran’s message but said it was a "natural conclusion" that such a warning would have been sent about the ridge.

"Iran considers any Israeli move on the ground in southern Lebanon, especially territorial expansion, a major violation of the Islamabad Agreement," Hezbollah’s media office said, referring to the June US-Iran memorandum of understanding that included a Lebanon ceasefire.

Iran fired missiles at Israel in early June in retaliation for attacks on Hezbollah on the Lebanese capital’s outskirts, after having previously warned of such a response.

On Thursday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said that if Iran were to attack Israel, the IDF would target all of the regime’s infrastructure, "including energy infrastructure."

"There are signs we are seeing that indicate that the heavy economic pressure Iran is under and the fear of an uprising and the fall of the regime could push them to desperate measures," Katz said at a Jewish New Year toast with Defense Ministry employees.

"An Iranian attack on Israel will free us from all constraints. We will strike all infrastructure — including energy infrastructure — and return Iran to the Stone Age and darkness," he said.

Katz added that "Israel is well prepared, defensively and offensively, for every possibility — and the IDF is ready to carry out the mission."

ISRAEL SEEKS TO BESIEGE HEZBOLLAH FIGHTERS
Despite a ceasefire announced in June, the Israeli military has said Hezbollah is still operating around the ridge and has twice, over the last week, launched explosive drones at Israeli troops nearby.

In July, it said it had launched an Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
 on a Hezbollah fighter near an access shaft to the underground site at Ali Taher and vowed not to allow the terror group to operate in the area or pose a threat to Israeli soldiers.

An Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Rooters in June that Hezbollah fighters were stuck underground without food or water. Israeli newspaper Maariv, citing a military source, reported Thursday that the Israeli military assessed there were no IRGC forces in Ali Taher and that some Hezbollah fighters had died without food and water.

The third official said Israel’s military was trying to smoke out Hezbollah and IRGC personnel by besieging them, and shooting down attempted drone deliveries of food and water to the ridge.

"What we have seen over the past month is Israeli pressure to besiege Ali al-Taher in order to impose a reality within this facility that renders it uninhabitable. This approach, and the absence of a large-scale attack, means that it is possible a message was conveyed through several countries — this is a natural conclusion," Hezbollah’s media office told Rooters.

HEZBOLLAH THREATENS RETALIATION
A Lebanese source briefed by Hezbollah said the group’s fighters can still access their positions through the ridge’s northern side.

Rooters could not independently confirm the military situation at Ali Taher, which Israel’s military has included in a self-declared security zone held by its troops and off-limits to Lebanese.

Despite Iran’s warning, the Lebanese source and a senior Lebanese security official said an Israeli military operation to capture the ridge was still possible in the coming weeks.

Hezbollah said any large-scale attack on Ali Taher would mean a return to full-blown war, and could see missiles landing on northern Israeli communities.

On Saturday, the Nidaa al-Watan outlet reported that Hezbollah has so far rejected overtures by the Lebanese government to pull its forces out of the contested Ali Taher Ridge, which would be handed over to the Lebanese Army, in accordance with an agreement with Israel.

The sources said the confrontation has stalled efforts to schedule a new round of US-backed negotiations between Jerusalem and Beirut in Rome, which has hosted multiple rounds of talks in recent months, with the report suggesting that international support for Lebanon’s army could be undermined if Hezbollah still holds the Ali Taher Ridge the next time negotiators convene.

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the broader Middle East conflict in March by launching rockets at Israel in support of its sponsor Iran, which had come under attack in a US-Israeli air campaign. Israel responded to the Hezbollah attacks with a heavy air campaign and ground invasion.

Despite the ceasefire declared in Lebanon in April, fighting has persisted to a lesser extent. Israeli forces continue to operate inside a self-declared "security zone," which runs around 10 kilometers (six miles) deep inside Lebanese territory along the border.

Israel has increased its attacks on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in recent days — particularly in the Nabatieh area where the Ali Taher Ridge is located — while the terror group has targeted troops operating in the area.

In June, Israel and Lebanon signed a framework agreement committing Lebanon to restoring illusory sovereignty over its territory through the "verified disarmament of non-state gangs," which would in turn enable a progressive Israeli withdrawal. The State of Lebanon, along with Israel and the US, signed the agreement, but Hezbollah and its allies are opposed to it.

Israel has so far pulled forces out of three pilot zones into which the Lebanese army entered, but has said it will not carry out any further withdrawals before Hezbollah is disarmed.
Posted by:Lord Garth

#1  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Skidmark   2026-09-04 00:07  

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