Israel hits Syria site tied to chemical weapons

The Syrian army said Israel targeted a military site in Hama Province early on Thursday which a war monitor said could be linked to chemical weapons production.

The air strike killed two soldiers and caused damage near the town of Masyaf, an army statement said. It warned of the “dangerous repercussions of this aggressive action to the security and stability of the region.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said the strike hit a Scientific Studies and Research Centre facility, an agency which the US describes as Syria’s chemical weapons manufacturer.

The strike took place the morning after UN investigators said the Syrian government was responsible for a sarin poison gas attack in April.

Syria’s government denies using chemical weapons and in 2013 it promised to surrender its chemical weapons program, which it says it has done.

The Observatory said strikes also hit a military camp next to the center that was used to store ground-to-ground rockets and where personnel of Iran and its ally, the Lebanese Hezbollah group, had been seen more than once.

An Israeli army spokesperson declined to discuss reports of a strike in Syria. Israeli officials have in the past admitted that Israel has repeatedly struck weapons shipments believed to be bound for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, without specifying which ones.