Israel strikes weapons site in Syria
• Israeli jets bombed a Syrian military facility linked to President Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons program on Thursday.
The 2 a.m. attack on the Syrian Scientific Research Centre (SSRC), which develops and produces chemical weapons, in the province of Homs near the Mediterranean coast, left at least two dead.
Syria describes the SSRC as a civilian institute, but the U.S. has accused the centre of helping to develop the sarin gas used in an attack on the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun in April that killed 83 people.
After the bombing, Washington later sanctioned 271 of the SSRC’s chemists and other affiliated officials.
The strikes came a day after the United Nation Commission of Inquiry announced it had an “extensive body of information” indicating the Syrian regime was responsible for the Khan Sheikhoun attack. It was the most concrete finding yet by the body linking the Assad regime to chemical attacks on civilians.
Syria’s government claims it no longer possesses chemical weapons after a 2013 agreement under which it pledged to surrender its chemical arsenal.
However, the international community, as well as former officials involved in the program, has long alleged that the regime had not complied.
Responding to Israel’s strikes, a Syrian army official warned against the “dangerous repercussions of this aggressive action to the security and stability of the region.”
Israel has conducted raids on military positions inside Syria and against suspected arms shipments believed to be headed to Lebanon’s Shia militia, Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside Assad’s forces, nearly 100 times during the six-year war. However, experts said the nature of Thursday’s target was “not routine.”
Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said: “This is the first time that the target which was attacked was a formal Syrian facility.” He said it had also produced rockets that had been transferred to the Lebanese militia.
Amos Yadlin, the former Israeli intelligence chief, said the raid sent three messages:
“That Israel won’t allow for empowerment and production of strategic arms. That Israel intends to enforce its red lines despite the fact that the great powers are ignoring them. And that the presence of Russian air defence does not prevent air strikes attributed to Israel.”