Iran has "no military presence" in Syria, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Tuesday.
"It is true that there are some Iranian advisers and experts [in Syria], but there are no Iranian military forces on Syrian soil," Lieberman said in an interview with Israeli Hebrew-language daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
"Iran has a strategy to create proxies everywhere," he asserted. "After all, they do not have a physical presence in Lebanon -- for this, they have Hezbollah."
"They [the Iranians] are physically present in Yemen; they have the Houthi rebels," the defense minister said.
He added: "And they have the same plan in Syria: to create all kinds of Shia militant [groups], which they will bring from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Lieberman went on to declare that "all the players in the region know Israel is the strongest power in the Middle East".
"We won't allow Iran to establish a presence in Syria," he added.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran of planning to establish and maintain a military presence inside war-torn Syria.
"The Iranians want to create a permanent military presence with the declared intent of using Syria as a base from which they can destroy Israel," Netanyahu said.
The prime minister also accused Tehran of building "missile factories" in Syria.
Since Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, Israel-Iran relations have been characterized by deep animosity, with Tehran seeing Israel as its primary foe in the region.
Israel, for its part, says Iran must be stopped from obtaining nuclear weapons or establishing a bridgehead in neighboring Syria.
