For the first time, the United States has become involved in the Syrian civil war in a close-up, personal, intimate way. An American citizen-turned-suicide bomber for Al Qaeda attacked a Syrian government complex on Sunday in the northern Idlib region.

News of the attack was posted on radical Islamic websites by the Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra( Al Nusra Front) terrorist organization. It was also tweeted around the English-speaking world on Tuesday via the Twitter social networking site.

“Abu Hurayra al-Amriki” performed a martyrdom operation in Idlim, Jabal al-Arba’een. May Allah accept him,” the post read.

Recently Al Qaeda had promised an attack from an “American,” according to CBS News. The words “al-Amriki” mean, “the American” in Arabic. U.S. officials have identified the terrorist’s legal name although they refuse to release that information to the public. He is believed to be the first American suicide bomber to strike in Syria.

American Al Qaeda suicide bomber Abu Hurayra al-Amriki dressed for his final operation in Syria, May 25, 2014.

The FBI told media that several dozen other Americans have also gone to Syria to join in the fighting.

Numerous photos have been posted on Twitter from various sources — most are re-posts from Jabhat al Nusra, actually — showing the aforementioned young bearded man all dressed up in his go-to-bombing suit, complete with explosives vest. There’s a shot of the huge bomb-laden truck he allegedly drove to his destination.

The saddest and most ironic is the one with him holding a half-grown kitten standing in front of a black and white sign written in flowing Arabic script that reads, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His Prophet,” – the rallying cry of all radical Islamist groups. That one is attached to the photos that show the subsequent results of his handiwork.

A guerrilla commander in the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist organization, an Iranian proxy group, was killed Monday in Syria fighting rebels for President Bashar al-Assad.

The death of Fawzi Ayoub in the southern Syrian town of Nawa, located in the province of Dera’a, was confirmed by the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Ayoub is listed on the FBI’s “most wanted” list for attempting to carry out a bombing attack in Israel. A veteran of the Jewish State’s prison system, Ayoub spent four years in jail (2000-2004) before he was freed as part of an early-release deal for a prisoner swap, sources told the Al Arabiya website Tuesday.

Although he was a resident of the southern Lebanese village of Ein Qa’ana, Ayoub also held Canadian citizenship and lived in the United States as well.

The 400+ year old Eliyahu HaNavi Synagogue, one of the oldest surviving shuls in Syria, was flattened and destroyed by Assad’s forces in Syria over the weekend. The synagogue is located in the Jobar neighborhood of Damascus. Exclusive full-size photos of the destroyed synagogue are available on The Daily Beast.

Syria used to have a large, vibrant and ancient Jewish community.

Here is a video of the synagogue before it was destroyed:

With a farcical “election” scheduled in Syria for June 3, Israel’s defense establishment will have to decide how to respond to Syria’s ongoing refusal to dismantle the country’s chemical and biological weapons arsenal. 

Bashar al-Assad has moved slowly to remove the chemical weapons in his possession, despite an agreement late last year to do so by June 30 of this year. Some observers have said this indicates the Syrian leader’s plan to retain a large parts of the non-conventional arsenal for use “some time in future.”

For Israel, “some time in future” could be sooner rather than later.  While there are growing signs that Assad has gained the upper hand in Syria’s civil war and is now in the process of re-solidifying his rule over most of the country, there is at least one area of the country that is largely held by radical Islamic rebel forces, including al-Qaeda:  The Golan Heights.

On the whole, the Heights have remained Israel’s quietist border since the Yom Kippur War in 1973. After suffering heavy losses during the initial round of fighting, IDF tank and infantry  battalions annihilated Syrian troops in what became a stinging loss for the regime of Hafez al-Assad, father of the current leader. 

As a result, Damascus has taken care to prevent cross-border incidents into Israel for fear of Israeli retribution.

But with the possibility of an al-Qaeda and Salafi presence on the Golan border, Israel will once again need to consider the possibility not only that the north-eastern border could soon become a theatre of operations, but also that Assad could use his  non-conventional arsenal against rebel forces camped on the Israeli border. Those attacks would likely not be aimed at Israel, but the poison would likely affect Israeli border towns just a few kilometres from Syrian towns like Kunetra.

According to Ben Caspit, a veteran Israeli defense correspondent, the IDF recently pulled the 36th Armored Division off the Heights and replaced the force with a division that specializes in what is known in Israel as “low-intensity security operations.” Caspit also  said the situation in Syria could create a difficult dilemma for IDF officers.

“If the insurgents do end up taking the Golan Heights,” Caspit wrote on the al-Monitor website, “Israel will have to decide how to respond to acts of provocation. For example, in the event that Assad loses his grip on the Golan Heights and Israel receives intel about a terrorist attack or a plan to unleash fire against Israel or Israeli locations from the Golan Heights, will Israel find it appropriate to operate there militarily? 

“These are the weighty issues with which Israel’s defense and political establishments are presently contending. In the end, as always, what happens on the ground will also determine the reaction,” Caspit wrote.

State Prosecutors handed down an indictment against Ahmed (Amad) Shourbaji, a 23-year-old resident of Umm el-Fahm who is accused of training with rebel groups in Syria, the Hebrew-language NRG website reported.

The website said Shourbaji confessed under interrogation, to entering Syria illegally in order to join armed groups seeking to depose the regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The incident is not the first time Arab citizens of Israel have been accused of crossing the Syrian border to participate in that country’s civil war. Israeli law prohibits Israeli citizens from visiting enemy countries. Exceptions are available, particularly for Arab citizens who have family in those countries.

But illegal entries have been common. Arab Knesset members routinely use their parliamentary immunity to participate in anti-Israel demonstrations. In 2007, former MK Azmi Bishara fled the country ahead of an indictment for for alleged espionagee on behalf of the Iranian/Lebanese terror group.

More recently, Israeli Arab journalist Majed Kiyal was arrested in April upon entering Israel from Jordan, after he allegedly attended a conference in Beirut, Lebanon. And in 2013, residents of Majdal Shams, the Druze town in the Golan Heights that is located alongside the Syrian border, told this reporter in 2013 that “everybody” in the town either has a family member or knows someone that has smuggled across the border to take part in the fighting.

Shourabi is accused of joining a group called “The Army of Muhammad.” His training is believed to have included training on a variety of weapons. Shabak investigators that Shourabi joined a radical group called “The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.” They believe he received advanced training in the use of light and heavy weapons, and participated in several battles against government troops

Spokespeople for the Shabak security service said, “The phenomenon of Israeli Arabs going to Syria presents a tremendous threat to the State of  Israel. There are several reasons for this: The Syrian theater is thriving with activity that is hostile to Israel, with an emphasis on a variety of international jihad groups.

“The military training that Israeli Arabs undergo there, alongside their exposure to radical ideologies… Above all there is the possibility that these people will be taken advantage of by terror groups to conduct military actions against the or in order to obtain intelligence information about targets in Israel.

For 40 years, the family of Tzion Tayib have been fighting for proof their son was killed in the Yom Kippur war and it is his body that is buried in the Har Herzl military cemetery, according to a report on Galei Tzahal (Army Radio).

Tayib’s position on the Hermon mountain was overrun in the first days of the Yom Kippur war by Syrian commandos, where Tayib served as a communications specialist, according to a detailed report on Walla.

From that position, a number of soldiers were declared missing, and 11 months later the IDF declared them dead.

According to the court papers released by the Supreme Court, the IDF claimed that they learned from captured Syrian soldiers the location of Tayib’s body, and they recovered it, confirmed his identity, and buried it.

The body of Tzion Tayib was buried without the family being present, and they were later informed that he had been buried.

The family, from the beginning claimed the IDF did not do enough to positively confirm the identify of Tayib, and it was lying to them. They felt there were discrepancies in the versions told to them.

The IDF said it had 100% confirmed that Tayib was dead and buried in his grave.

Twenty years ago, when DNA testing became reliable, the family asked that the body be exhumed to confirm that it was Tayib who was buried in the Har Herzl military cemetery, but the IDF refused.

Three months ago, the family turned to the Bagatz (Israel’s Supreme Court) for permission to exhume and test the body.

In February, the Supreme Court responded that the IDF’s presented sufficient proof that it was Tzion Tayib who was buried there, and did not grant permission to the family.

The family then decided to take action on their own.

On Friday, when the cemetery was busy with preparations for Memorial Day, the family entered the cemetery with two doctors, one of them a pathologist, as well as a tombstone maker. They carefully removed the tombstone and began digging.

They did not find the body of Tzion Tayib. They did not find any body at all in the grave.

They videoed all the evidence, and then restored the grave and tombstone so that no one visiting their lost ones during the day would be disturbed by the site of an open grave.

As can be expected, this has caused a major scandal in Israel.

During the Yom Kippur war, when many soldiers were killed in terrible battles, sometimes, such as in the case of burnt out tanks, there was very little, if anything left to bury. But in those cases, the IDF privately informed the families that they were burying an empty coffin, or were burying a tank unit together, whose parts weren’t individually identifiable.

In this case, the IDF fought the family for 40 years, claiming it did bury the Tzion Tayib’s body.

What happens next remains to be seen.

From the Ministry of Defense Yizkor site:

Online Marker for Tzion Tayib

Syrian soldiers and rebels killed more than 50 people and wounded more than 100 others in a car bomb blast in a regime-held neighborhood in Homs and mortar shelling attacks in Damascus.

The car bomb explosion killed 36 people and wounded more than 85, most of them civilians. In Damascus, at least 17 died and 50 other were wounded in the mortar shell barrage.

As usual, the regime of Syrian President Bassar al-Assad blamed rebels, whom it calls “terrorists,” for the attacks, which opposition forces apparently carried out considering that the victims in Homs were Alawites, the sect to which Assad belongs.

Human Rights Watch reports that Assad’s forces still are carrying out barrel-bomb attacks in the city of Aleppo, ignoring a U.N. resolution demanding a halt to the barbarian tactic.

However, virtually no one in Syria listens to the United Nations or anyone else as the civil war drags on in its fourth year, about three years after military and political “experts,” such as Ehud Barak of Israel, were dead certain that Assad would not last more than a few months.