The destruction of Syria continues apace. The regime has lost the ability to monopolize the use of force within the state and its control of Syria's land borders is no longer uncontested. This loss of control is perhaps most ominously the case on the cease-fire line separating Israeli and Syrian forces — those belonging to the regime and the multifaceted opposition alike — on the Golan frontier.

Unlike Syria's borders with Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan, there is no agreed-upon border between Israel and Syria, whose military forces are instead deployed along a cease-fire line established in the wake of the October 1973 war that ended with Israeli forces occupying sovereign Syrian territory in the Golan Heights. The United Nations disengagement and observer force (UNDOF) was established in June 1974 to observe the cease-fire and supervise the disengagement agreement.

For almost four decades, service with the UNDOF along the frontier was a vacation. The 1,250-man force oversaw the creation and maintenance of an area of separation along the 75 km frontier, ranging in width from 10 km along the flat plateau to only 200 meters in the south. It established two base camps, 20 permanently manned positions, eight outposts manned during the day and 11 observation posts. The Austrian battalion includes a Croatian company deployed in the northern sector. A battalion from the Philippines is deployed in the south. Forces from India and Japan provide logistics support. The zone is inhabited by Syrian civilians and is meant to be governed and policed by Damascus. No Syrian or Israeli military forces are permitted in the zone. While proxies on occasion battled elsewhere, and Syria and Israel themselves came to blows, both Israel and Syria agreed on the need and the value of keeping the Golan quiet.

Israel, whose forces are only 60 km from Damascus, remains committed to maintaining the peace along the border, but the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is no longer capable of holding up its part of the bargain. The first signs of Assad's loss of control followed the pattern established throughout the country. Initially there were exchanges of fire between the rebel forces and the Syrian army close to the border. Then, some of the shots or shells crossed over the border into Israel, which responded in kind. Some insurgents escaped to Israeli territory or crossed into the Israeli-occupied Golan to receive medical treatment. Israel's Channel 10 has reported that al-Qaeda operatives, including members of the Al Furqan battalion, also active in Idlib, have been watching and studying IDF operations along the border, sometimes from a vantage only meters from IDF patrols.