Syria's government misread how Israel would respond to its troops deploying to the country's south last week, encouraged by U.S. messaging that Syria should be governed as a centralized state, according to eight sources familiar with the matter.
Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops and on Damascus on Wednesday in an escalation that took the Islamist-led leadership by surprise, the sources said, after government forces were accused of killing scores of people in the Druze city of Sweida.
Damascus believed it had a green light from both the U.S. and Israel to dispatch its forces south despite months of Israeli warnings not to do so, according to the sources, which include Syrian political and military officials, two diplomats, and regional security sources.
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