This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The End of the American Dream.

While radical Sunni militants were conquering Damascus, Israel was conducting an absolutely massive bombing campaign inside Syria that was unlike anything we have seen before.  The IDF is telling us that more than 350 targets were hit.

Basically, the goal was to destroy as much military hardware as possible so that it would not fall into the hands of the militants.  The Israelis were concerned that the militants might use the military hardware that they inherited against them, and so they took pre-emptive action.  Unfortunately, the militants are now steaming mad, and some of them are already publicly threatening Israel.

Syria never had a large navy to begin with, but now it has been completely neutralized.

According to the BBC, Israeli naval forces “struck the ports at Al-Bayda and Latakia on Monday night”…

Israel has confirmed it carried out attacks on Syria’s naval fleet, as part of its efforts to neutralise military assets in the country after the fall of the Assad regime.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its ships struck the ports at Al-Bayda and Latakia on Monday night, where 15 vessels were docked.

The BBC has verified videos showing blasts at the port of Latakia, with footage appearing to show extensive damage to ships and parts of the port.

The goal of the operation was to destroy the entire Syrian Navy, and we are being told that the operation was successful…

Israeli missile ships destroyed the Syrian military fleet in an operation on Monday night as part of a broad campaign to eliminate strategic threats, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday in Haifa.

It is also being reported that Israel conducted extensive strikes on the largest airbases in Syria.

According to one report, “dozens of helicopters and fighter jets have been destroyed”…

Israel has hit Syria’s largest airbases, the Al Arabiya television channel said, citing two sources in Syria’s defense sector.

“Israel has delivered strikes on the largest airbases in Syria,” the sources said, adding that airfield “infrastructure and dozens of helicopters and fighter jets have been destroyed.”

The Syrian Air Force has been crippled for the foreseeable future, and this will be a major advantage for the IDF if a full-blown conflict with the new regime suddenly erupts.

The IDF also targeted sites where it was suspected that chemical weapons and ballistic missiles were being developed.

Essentially, the Israelis wanted to wipe the slate clean as much as possible.  So just about every site that had strategic importance got hit.

In addition, the IDF has created a “buffer zone” in southern Syria in order to keep the rebels from storming the Israeli border.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that this “buffer zone” is just a “temporary defensive position”…

The IDF seizure of Syrian positions in the buffer zone was a “temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.

“If we can establish neighbourly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that’s our desire. But if we do not, we will do whatever it takes to defend the State of Israel and the border of Israel,” he said on Monday.

Of course, others see this move by Israel very differently.

According to the Times of Israel, a news outlet that is aligned with Hezbollah is alleging that Israeli forces have moved well beyond the reported “buffer zone”…

The Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen news outlet reports that Israeli tanks have advanced beyond the boundaries of the Golan Heights buffer zone in Syria that it moved troops into earlier this week.

According to the unverified report from the Lebanese outlet, the tanks progressed past the abandoned buffer zone town of Qunaitra before stopping near Qatana, a southern Syria city just over 21 kilometers away from the capital city of Damascus.

The report further that Israeli troops also entered several villages on the outskirts of Damascus.

The Israeli government is strongly denying that Israeli forces have approached Damascus.

Hopefully, the IDF and the militants will keep their distance from one another because a full-blown conflict could erupt so easily right now.

Meanwhile, the Iranians are trying to figure out what to do next as they process the most “devastating defeat” in modern Iranian history…

The swift collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime represents a devastating defeat for Iran, the latest in a string of setbacks that have punctured long held assumptions in the West about Tehran’s military prowess.

In recent months, Iran has proved unable to thwart Israeli covert operations from targeting key figures in the regime, defend itself from damaging Israeli airstrikes, or protect an ally next door that was a linchpin in its regional proxy network, dubbed the “axis of resistance.”

The Iranians understand that the same forces that engineered regime change in Syria are coming for them next.

The Iranians feel cornered, and a cornered predator is extremely dangerous.

There is one more thing that I wanted to mention before I end this article.  On the other side of the globe, the Chinese are once again becoming extremely aggressive with Taiwan…

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday said that China had deployed its largest navy fleet in regional waters in nearly three decades.

The deployment is bigger than the military drills of 2022, when former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island.

The Defense Ministry said that 47 aircraft and 12 warships had been detected in the previous 24 hours. It added that this was the largest number of aircraft spotted near the island in a single day in the last two months, which saw an escalation in Chinese war games along the island.

The Chinese were obviously not pleased with how the regime in Syria was toppled.

Could this be their response?

Are they trying to send us some sort of a message?

2025 could potentially be a year when we see war in Asia, war in Europe, and war in the Middle East all at the same time.  I have been warning about these wars for ages, and now we are right at the door.

Sadly, most of the population of the Western world does not seem too alarmed by anything that is happening.

Most of us just continue to go on with our lives as if the party will never end, but meanwhile, our leaders continue to drag us closer and closer to the unthinkable.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written eight other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream, and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.