Israeli commandos carried out a raid in Syria on Sunday that “obliterated” a facility that produces missiles for Hezbollah, U.S. and other Western officials told the New York Times.
According to the New York Times report, Israeli special forces descended on the site using helicopters, apparently seizing materials from the missile production facility, the officials said.
Due to the complexity of the operation, and in order to obtain information from the site – located near Syria’s border with Lebanon – ground forces were used in the attack, according to the report.
The officials told the New York Times that the Israeli raid included airstrikes on the massive site, including on the Scientific Studies and Research Center near Masyaf, in northwestern Syria.
According to the director of the Middle East Institute’s Syria and counterterrorism programs, Charles Lister, an initial series of Israeli airstrikes hit at least four Syrian military sites near Masyaf. A second lot of strikes hit a building in the institute that connected to a network of underground tunnels, according to Lister.
In the final stage, Lister says, a number of Israeli helicopters entered Syrian territory and dispatched dozens of elite Israeli commando soldiers on the edge of the site’s bunkers. As the commandos advanced into the site, Israeli drones attacked Syrian troops who were approaching the scene, according to Lister.
Syrian state news agency SANA reported that 18 people had been killed in the raid and dozens more injured, including six who were wounded critically, in what was one of the most lethal attacks in Syria in recent months. Roads were damaged alongside water, electricity, and communications infrastructure, according to SANA.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, linked to the country’s opposition, reported that an airstrike between Sunday and Monday this week hit six Iranian militia sites, killing 25 people and injuring dozens more. Among the dead, according to the office, were five civilians, four Syrian soldiers, two Hezbollah members who were Syrian citizens, 11 Syrians working for Iranian militias and three unidentified individuals.
According to the New York Times report, Israel informed U.S. officials before it conducted the series of strikes. U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Michael E. Kurilla visited the Israel Defense Forces’ Northern Command underground war room on Sunday, where he was reportedly shown the army’s operational plans for Lebanon, the IDF said.
Israeli officials, the U.S. government, and independent experts describe the scientific institute as a research and development center for weapons, assisted by Iran. “Chemical, biological and potentially nuclear weapons are developed there, as are missiles used by Hezbollah,” the New York Times reported.
Israel previously assassinated a Syrian scientist who worked at the facility in 2018, and has struck Masyaf multiple times in the past, according to the report.
Officials noted in the report that while the facility has been affiliated with chemical weapons production in the past, no work of this kind has been carried out there in recent years. The facility was, however, producing precision-guided missiles for Hezbollah, sparking concern among some government analysts that the group would be able to strike northern Israel with greater accuracy.
Officials who were briefed on the incident told the New York Times that without troops on the ground, the facility could not have been destroyed, which was the goal of the operation. Another goal was to obtain intelligence on the status of Hezbollah’s weapons development, officials reported.
According to Lister, the sites in Masyaf and the surrounding areas were key to the development of a range of Syrian missiles and munitions.
Source » haaretz