Israeli attack on Syria

Totally absent from news reports this morning

Israeli warplanes bombed research center near Damascus - Syrian state news agency

An Israeli F-15 fighter jet (AFP Photo/Jack Guez)

RT,

30 January, 2013

Israeli air force jets reportedly attacked a target on the Syria-Lebanon border after repeatedly violating Lebanese airspace Wednesday night. The Syrian military, however, says the jets targeted a scientific research center near Damascus.

The overnight IAF strike was directed at a weapons convoy traveling from Syria into Lebanon, RT correspondent Paula Slier reported from Israel, citing Lebanese media. The convoy may have been moving anti-aircraft rockets from Syria, Slier added, citing foreign sources who spoke on Israeli TV.

“There was definitely a hit in the border area,” the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity, without elaborating further.

Several squads of Israeli air force jets breached Lebanese airspace overnight, the Lebanese army reported in a statement earlier on Wednesday. The army said that four warplanes flew over the southernmost coastal town of Naqoura and hovered for several hours over villages in southern Lebanon before leaving the country's airspace.

The airstrike came amid Israeli concerns over Syrian chemical arms falling into militants’ hands. The Israel Defense Force refused to confirm or deny the reports. "We do not comment on reports of this kind," an IDF spokesperson said.

Later on Wednesday, the Syrian army’s general command has issued a statement claiming that Israeli warplanes violated Syrian airspace and launched a direct strike on a military research center in Jamraya, near Damascus.

Over the past week, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of IAF planes sighted in the airspace of Lebanon, which borders Syria. At least 12 jet missions were reported by the Lebanese military.

The reports come amid concerns voiced by Israeli officials that Syrian chemical weapons and anti-aircraft missiles could fall into the hands of Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

“It is necessary to look at our surroundings, both at what is happening with Iran and its proxies, and what is happening in other arenas – lethal weaponry in Syria, which is steadily breaking up,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a Sunday cabinet meeting.

Israel recently threatened to launch a preemptive strike on Syria if the Assad regime loses control of its chemical weapons stockpiles. The moment that Israelis “begin to understand” that chemical weapons are about to be seized by Hezbollah or Syrian rebels, the decision to take preventive military intervention could be made, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said on Sunday.

IAF commander Amir Eshel issued a statement warning that Syria’s huge chemical weapons arsenal faces an uncertain fate in a “country falling apart.”

And from Qatari al-Jazeera....

Syria confirms Israeli airstrike

The Syrian army says an Israeli airstrike targeted a military research centre near Damascus, killing two people.

al-Jazeera,

30 January, 2013

The Syrian army has said that Israeli jets crossed into Syria below the radar level at dawn and hit a military research centre in Jamraya, near Damascus.

"Israeli fighter jets violated our airspace at dawn today and carried out a direct strike on a scientific research centre in charge of raising our level of resistance and self-defence," the army's general command said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA on Wednesday evening.

The strike came "after terrorist groups made several failed attempts in the past months to take control of the site," the statement added of rebel groups fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace via Mount Hermon, or Jabal el-Sheikh in Arabic, the army said.

"They... carried out an act of aggression, bombarding the site, causing large-scale material damage and destroying the building," state television quoted the military as saying.

The army added that two site workers were killed in the strike.

"This assault is one of a long list of acts of aggression and criminality against the Arabs and Muslims," said the statement.

The army denied earlier reports that Israeli forces had launched an air strike overnight on a weapons convoy from Syria near the border with Lebanon.

Media reports quoted US and regional officials as saying that Israel had conducted an airstrike inside Syria near the border with Lebanon, hitting a convoy of trucks.

"The target was a truck loaded with weapons, heading from Syria to Lebanon," said one Western diplomat on Wednesday.

A source among rebels fighting Assad said an air strike around dawn (0430 GMT) on Wednesday blasted a convoy on a mountain track about 5 kilometres south of where the main Damascus-Beirut highway crosses the border.

The regional officials said Israel had been planning in the days leading up to the airstrike to hit a shipment of weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

They said the shipment included sophisticated, Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which would be strategically "game-changing" in the hands of Hezbollah.

A US official confirmed the overnight strike hitting a convoy of trucks.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the strike.

No comments

Israel and the United States declined to comment.

"I don't have any comment for you on those reports," said White House spokesman Jay Carney, when asked about the strike.

"I'd refer you to the government of Israel for questions about deliberations or actions that they may or may not have taken," he said.

Among Israeli security officials' chief fears is that Hezbollah could get its hands on Syrian chemical arms and SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles.

If that were to happen, it would change the balance of power in the region and greatly hinder Israel's ability to conduct air violations in Lebanon.

Airspace violation

The military in Lebanon, which shares borders with both Israel and Syria, said on Wednesday that Israeli warplanes have sharply increased their activity over Lebanon in the past week, including at least 12 sorties in less than 24 hours in the country's south.

A senior Lebanese security official said there were no Israeli airstrikes inside Lebanese territory. Asked whether it could have been along the border on the Syrian side, he said that that could not be confirmed as it was out of his area of operations.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

A Lebanese army statement said the last of the airspace violations took place at 2 am local time on Wednesday. It said four warplanes which flew in over the southernmost coastal town of Naqoura hovered for several hours over villages in southern Lebanon before leaving Lebanese airspace.

It said similar flights by eight other warplanes were conducted on Tuesday.

Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace occur on a daily basis and Lebanese authorities routinely lodge complaints at the UN against the flights.