Israel allegedly strikes Iranian military sites in Syria
Target said to be underground production facility for surface-to-surface missiles funded by Iran, helped by N. Korea
The Syrian Army confirmed that several military bases in northern Syria were struck on Sunday in an attack it blamed on Israel, according to the Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper Al Akhbar.
“Some military sites in the countryside of Hama and Aleppo provinces were exposed at 10:30 p.m.,” the official news agency SANA quoted a military source as saying. Explosions that followed the strike registered as a 2.6-magnitude earthquake, according to the European Mediterranean Seismological Center.
Al Akhbar reported the targets were Syrian Army bases being used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Shi’ite militias staffed with troops from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Initial opposition reports cited by Sky News Arabia claimed more than 40 people were killed and another 60 were wounded. However, Iran denied any “military advisers” had been killed in the strike.
Hezbollah’s Al Mayadeen TV reported that missiles also struck targets in the al-Malikiyah area, north of Aleppo’s airport. Iran’s Tasnim News
Iran wants to retaliate against Israel, but how? Page 2
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Agency claimed the strikes were missiles fired from US and UK bases in Jordan.
According to some reports, the target in Hama, an army base known as Brigade 47, was an underground missile production facility and depot for surface-to-surface missiles funded by Iran and built with the help of North Korea. The facility near Hama City is widely known as a recruitment center for Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias that fight alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces.
Unconfirmed reports said an Iranian general was killed in the strike on Brigade 47, while former IDF intelligence chief Maj.Gen. Amos Yadlin warned of more volatility if Iranians were indeed killed in the strike.
“If the casualties were Syrians, they would simply be another addition to the half-million people already killed in the civil war to this day. If they are Iranians, it will be added to the unfinished business they have with us, and then the month of May will be very volatile,” he said on Army Radio.
Tensions have risen dramatically between the two arch enemies in recent months. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded to the strike by saying the time when Iran’s enemies could “hit and run” was over.
“They know if they enter military conflict with Iran, they will be hit multiple times,” he said during a speech marking Iran’s upcoming Labor Day.
In February, an armed Iranian drone infiltrated into northern Israel, which the IDF says was on a sabotage attack mission against the Jewish state. In midApril, a strike on the T4 airbase in Homs province that was blamed on Israel killed seven IRGC soldiers, including Col. Mehdi Dehghan, who led the drone unit that operated out of the base. Reports later surfaced saying advanced Iranian air defenses had been the target of that strike.
Referring to Iran’s promise to respond to the alleged attack by Israel on the T4 base, Yadlin said the target might have been based on intelligence showing Iran was preparing a retaliatory strike that Tehran warned was coming.
“We have to investigate whether the attack came in response to weapon transfers to Hezbollah, to Iranian infrastructure being built in Syria, or whether there was intelligence about Tehran’s possible response and a decision was made to thwart it,” he said.
According to Michael Horowitz, senior regional analyst at the Middle East-based geopolitical consultancy Le Beck, Israel has stepped up its frequency of strikes and the nature of targets has changed.
“There’s been a clear change in Israel’s strategy in Syria since last year,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “Israeli strikes are both hitting targets deeper inside Syria and the nature of these targets has changed from weapons convoy and depots to actual Iranian bases.”
According to Horowitz, the strike on the Taqsis base in Hama “is very significant” as “such factories that produce ballistic missiles could help Iran gain game-changing capabilities to be used in a potential confrontation with Israel by significantly increasing the number of precision-guided missiles within Hezbollah’s arsenal.”
“It is also notable because of the challenge striking such a facility represents. The Taqsis base is built inside a mountain,” and Israel, had it carried out the attack, “would have had to use advanced weapons, such as bunker busters, to hit it,” he said. “A successful such strike would send a clear message of deterrence to Iran that even underground facilities – including other missile-production sites in Syria or Lebanon and even nuclear-related sites in Iran – are within Israel’s reach.”
Earlier Sunday, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said Israel would respond forcibly if any rockets are launched at Israel or at Israeli jets.
“If someone thinks that it is possible to launch missiles to Israeli cities or our aircraft, no doubt we will respond, and we will respond very forcefully,” he said at the Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York in response to a question asked by the Post’s editor-in-chief Yaakov Katz. “We will keep our freedom of operation in all of Syria,” he said. “We have no intention to attack Russia or to interfere in domestic Syrian issues. But if somebody thinks that it is possible to launch missiles or to attack Israel or even our aircraft, no doubt we will respond and we will respond very forcefully. •