The Israeli army disclosed on Sunday a covert operation in southern Syria that took place in recent months, where its special forces unit Egoz, working with intelligence officers from Unit 504, captured a Syrian citizen suspected of gathering intelligence for Iran.
The suspect, identified as Ali Suleiman al-Assi from the village of Saida in the Daraa Governorate, was reportedly conducting surveillance of Israeli military activities along the Syrian border.
The Israeli army claims he was collecting information to support future attacks against Israel, without specifying the date or place of capture.
Before his capture and transfer to Israel for interrogation, Assi was closely monitered by Israeli forces.
In recorded questioning later released by the Israeli army, Assi revealed that an Iranian-linked operative had approached and recruited him.
Assi admitted to being tasked with observing border activities while posing as a member of Syrian military intelligence, then reporting his findings about Israeli patrol patterns.
According to the Israeli army, this operation successfully prevented a planned attack and exposed Iranian intelligence gathering methods along the Golan Heights frontier.
On July 19, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that “Israeli forces arrested a citizen who worked as a driver transporting milk to the capital, Damascus, in the village of al-Razatiya,” in the south of the southern province of Quneitra, bordering the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.