The Israeli attack on Syria

The western narrative on these events is to stick with the story of an attack on an “armed convoy” while refusing to criticise Israel for its flagrant violation of Syria's sovereignty.

This article is the only example I could find that brings any clarity to this situation.

Israel faces repercussions of air strike on Syria

Jewish state maintains its traditional silence in the face of accusations that it violated Syria's sovereign territory

An Israeli man has a gas mask fitted at a distribution centre in East Jerusalem. Syria said it reserved the right to retaliate after an Israeli air strike on a military research centre near Damascus. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty

the Guardian,

31 January, 2013

Israel faces threats of retaliation after Wednesday's bombing on the Syrian-Lebanese border, with Russia and the Arab League describing it as a violation of Syria's sovereignty. Syria and Iran threatened to respond to the military intervention, which was widely ascribed to Israeli forces.

Warplanes targeted a "scientific research centre" near Damascus, according to Syrian state television. Other reports said a convoy believed to be carrying Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles across the border to Hezbollah in Lebanon was struck.

The Israeli military declined to comment.

A spokesman for the Arab League said the bombing was a "glaring violation" of Syria's sovereignty. The "silence of the international community about Israel's bombing of Syrian sites in the past encouraged it to carry out the new aggression, taking advantage of political and security deterioration in Syria," Nabil al-Arabi, the league's head, said.

The Russian foreign ministry said: "If this information is confirmed, then we are dealing with unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violates the UN charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives to justify it."

Hezbollah, the Lebanese Islamic militia, pledged full solidarity with the Syrian regime, saying Israel had "perpetrated a barbaric attack"."In line with its inherent spirit of aggression and criminality, and in accordance with its policy of preventing any Arab or Islamic power from developing technological and military capabilities, Israel perpetrated a barbaric attack against a Syrian installation for scientific research on Syrian territory, causing the death of a number of Syrians, the injury of others, and the destruction of the installation," the Hezbollah statement read. Two people were killed and five wounded in the attack, according to Syrian state television.

The Syrian ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdul-Karim, said Damascus retained "the option... to retaliate". The Iranian deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, was quoted as saying the attack would have significant implications for Tel Aviv, which is within range of Hezbollah rockets.

The US administration was warned of the attack, according to the New York Times.

Israel continued to maintain an official silence on the air strike, following a pattern of previous military interventions attributed to its forces. Some analysts said this was to minimise the likelihood of retaliatory action.

"Clearly someone attacked something on the Syrian-Lebanese border," said military expert Yossi Alpher. "But it's extremely important in these situations that Israel does everything possible to avoid being accredited with these actions. There's a danger of retaliatory action, whether by Syria or Hezbollah."

Alpher said he was "not in the least surprised" by the attack. In the past few days, high-level Israeli emissaries have been despatched to Washington and Moscow, while warnings that weapons, both chemical and conventional, could reach Hezbollah or jihadists inside Syria had become more shrill."Anyone who puts two and two together is likely to come to this conclusion [that Israel was responsible]," Alpher said.

Gerald Steinberg, of the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies, said Israel's political, military and intelligence leadership would have made calculations about the risks of retaliation before ordering air strikes. "This is a government that is very focused on rational cost-benefit analyses. There is no question in my mind that they would have calculated the risks. The costs of not acting would be deemed to be greater than the potential repercussions," he said.

Israel, he added, had "not acted nor spoken publicly about the upheaval in Syria for almost two years. If something has changed, it's because something has changed on the ground."

Amid confusion over the target or targets of the air strike, reports suggested that a convoy carrying conventional weapons, most likely Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, from Syria to Hezbollah depots in Lebanon was targeted.

"These are game-changing weapons," said Miri Eisin, a former Israeli military intelligence officer. Syria, she said, had received cutting-edge military hardware from Russia, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft surface-to-air missiles. "These are some of the most advanced technologies. If they go to Hezbollah - a non-state terror actor on Israel's border - that's a game-changer. Then you are going to prefer pre-emptive action."

The pre-dawn air strike on the Syrian-Lebanese border closely followed reports of intensive sorties by Israeli military planes. United Nations forces on the Israel-Lebanon border "recorded a high number of Israeli overflights throughout the day and the night", UN spokesman Andrea Tenenti told the Guardian.

UN forces had no evidence of illegal weapons or increased Hezbollah presence in their area of operations, close to the border with Israel. "We haven't seen any suspicious activities in the south," he said.Israel is widely believed to be behind previous attacks that it never publicly acknowledged. In 2007 Israel was accused of destroying a site in Syria that was believed to be a nuclear reactor under construction. Syria claimed it was a non-nuclear military site.

Israeli fighter planes are believed to have carried out an air strike on an arms factory in Khartoum last October and an attack on an arms convoy in 2009, also in Sudan, in which scores of people were killed. Both were thought to be aimed at preventing the manufacture or transport of weapons to Hamas in Gaza.

‘Israeli airstrike intended to stop Syrian scientific military research’

Though Israel has not yet claimed responsibility for an airstrike targeting a military site near Damascus, experts believe that Tel Aviv aimed to further destabilize Syria and undermine its military capabilities.

RT,

31 January, 2013

Initial reports suggested that Israel conducted an airstrike on a convoy carrying sophisticated weaponry that was preparing to cross the Syria-Lebanon border. Israeli officials said the vehicles may have contained chemical weapons and Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles intended for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“This episode boils down to a warning by Israel to Syria and Hezbollah not to engage in the transfer of sensitive weapons,” a regional security source told Reuters.

But the latest reports from Syria suggest that the airstrike hit the Jamraya research center in the suburbs of Damascus, far from the Lebanese border. An anonymous diplomatic source told Reuters that chemical weapons may be stored at the center, and that the vehicles in Hezbollah convoy were unlikely to be carrying such arms.

Israeli officials have not commented on the airstrike, but the assault may have revealed Tel Aviv’s plans, experts believe. After months of sustained rebel assaults on Syrian air defense systems and bases, the Israeli airstrike follows a pattern of other recent attempts to undermine Syria’s military capabilities.

Israeli officials have frequently expressed fears that Syrian President Bashar Assad will lose control of the country’s chemical weapons stockpiles. But Dr. Ali Mohamad, editor-in-chief of the Syria Tribune news website, believes the fears of chemical weapons was a pretext to destroy Syria's military research centers and ensure that Damascus is unable to produce arms for its military or regional allies.

Syrians know that “this is not at all about chemical weapons,” Dr. Mohamad told RT. “It’s about stopping the Syrian scientists’ military research projects.”

“It finally makes sense because the rebels or as they like to call themselves the revolutionaries, they have been attacking air defense bases near Damascus for the past seven months,” Dr. Mohamad said. “They’ve managed to attack the S-200 base and over four other surface-to-air missile bases. Now this followed by an airstrike from Israel. So it all adds up, it makes sense. It only shows that Israel has a great interest in the instability in Syria and that it is being helped by groups of armed rebels in Syria.”

“Military research centers are responsible for developing weapons, in particular land-to-land long range missiles,” and Israel wants to stop this research process, Dr. Mohamed explained. “Of course Israel will claim that this is connected to a chemical weapons arsenal, but this is of course not true because nobody stores chemical weapons in a research center.”

“Let’s remember that the Syrian official who was responsible for all military research projects has been assassinated in Damascus by the rebels,” he said. 

“Let’s also remember that the person who orchestrated the Syrian long-range missile project colonel Dawoud Rajiha was also assassinated in Damascus. This is about stopping the Syrian scientific military research projects and is about breaking the link that will help [Israel] overcome the Lebanese resistance and the Palestinian resistance.”

Syria will likely retaliate, but not in the form of a direct attack on Israel. Instead, Damascus will seek to arm Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance, Dr. Mohamed said.

‘Israel opening new front against Syria with tacit approval from US’

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African news wire, told RT that the Israeli airstrike on Syria is the opening of a new front in the assault on the government of Syrian President Assad.

Western nations have supported the Syrian rebels for the past two years, and are therefore invested in drawing international attention away from the atrocities carried out by some rebel groups on the ground.

“The rebels have been involved in tremendous human right violations inside the country,” Azikiwe said. “We saw what happened just yesterday with the finding of some 80 people who’ve been massacred, with handcuffs behind their backs shot in the head. And of course these actions carried out by the US-backed rebels inside of Syria are tremendously damaging to their image internationally. So in order to deflect attention away from these developments Israel has launched an air raid, alleging that Syria is transporting weapons to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.”

Azikiwe predicted that both the US and Israel will use the threat of Syrian chemical weapons falling into Hezbollah’s hands as an excuse for this airstrike, as well as similar future military actions in the region.

Israel’s airstrike is also aimed at putting further pressure on Assad’s government: “Part of that strategy of course has been the deployment of Patriot missiles in Turkey,” he said. “And with the airstrikes that took place today this is designed to create a sense of encirclement.”

Azikiwe said that Israel seeks to exploit the situation to escalate another conflict on its borders – throughout its history, Israel has operated in a state of “permanent war” with his neighbors. With financial, political and military support from the US and NATO, Israel can afford to maintain its hegemony throughout the Middle East, he said.

Muslims will never allow Israel to attack Syria: Iran official

Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili (R) meets Syrian Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun in Tehran on January 31, 2013.

An Iranian official says Damascus is at the forefront of the anti-Israel resistance campaign and the Muslim world will not allow Israel to march on Syrian soil.

Press TV,

31 January, 2013

During a meeting with Syrian Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun in Tehran on Thursday, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili said the Israeli regime would regret attacking Syria.

He said military action against Syria would be a bitter disappointment for Israel like its failures in the wars it waged against Lebanon in 2006, the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip once in 2008-2009, and November 2012.

Jalili also pointed to the important role Muslim clergy can play in raising awareness in Muslim nations about enemy plots, stressing that the enemy seeks to prevent the formation and development of a new Muslim civilization through pressure on the anti-Israel resistance front.

The senior Iranian official described Iran’s support for Syria and its resistance bloc as wholehearted and unwavering.

Hassoun said Israel’s recent airstrike on a military research center near Damascus clearly exposed anti-Syria bids and the direct involvement of the Israeli regime in the Syrian unrest.

He also underlined the need for increased vigilance among Muslims to foil plots devised by the enemy to create a rift among Muslims.