An incident with ISIS in the southern Golan Heights ended with success for the Israel Defense Forces despite a possible miscue at the beginning. Either way, the potential danger on the Israel-Syria border is now apparent. For the first time openly, a force from the Islamic State group’s local branch engaged an IDF force. If the friction in the southern Golan morphs into a frequent occurrence from a one-time incident, Israel might find itself with a headache.

The incident Sunday morning began with an ambush by a force from the Golani Brigade’s reconnaissance battalion east of the Golan border fence. This area is under Israeli control; at some points the fence is west of the border so that Israeli forces can take advantage of better topography.

It seems the Israeli ambush force was spotted by the forces on the other side, who started firing – first their rifles, then mortar shells. Basically, this was a glitch. The soldiers conducting the ambush should have reached their deployment position secretly; the idea is to surprise the opponent, not the other way around.

Read the full article at Haaretz.