Israel strikes Syria over its ‘red line’ rule
THOUSANDS FLEE COASTAL TOWN
BEIRUT— With a third airstrike against Syria in four months, Israel is enforcing its own “red line” of not allowing gamechanging weapons to reach Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The third attack came early Sunday. Powerful explosions rocked the outskirts of Damascus, sending a fireball into the night sky. Syrian state television said Israeli rockets struck a military facility just north of the capital.
One of the sites hit, the Jamraya military research centre, was also targeted by Israel in January.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights quoted eyewitnesses in the area as saying they saw jets in the sky at the time of the explosions.
“The new Israeli attack is an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups which have been reeling from strikes by our noble army,” Syrian television said, referring to the civil war between the government and rebels.
Israel declined to comment on the Damascus explosions, but that attack quickly followed an Israeli airstrike Friday on a consignment of missiles in a Syrian warehouse intended for the Hezbollah, a heavily armed foe of the Jewish state and an ally of President Bashar Assad’s regime.
The two attacks raise new concerns that the region’s most powerful military could be dragged into Syria’s civil war and spark a wider conflagration.
An Israeli official said Friday’s strike targeted a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles, believed to be M600s, a Syrian version of Iran’s Fatah 110 missile. These are extremely accurate guided missiles capable of travelling roughly 300 kilometres with a halfton warhead.
The airstrikes come as Washington considers how to respond to indications that the Syrian regime may have used chemical weapons in its civil war. President Barack Obama has described the use of such weapons as a “red line,” and the administration is weighing its BEIRUT— Thousands of Sunni Muslims fled a Syrian coastal town Saturday, a day after reports circulated that dozens of people, including children, had been killed by pro-government gunmen in the area, activists said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 4,000 people had fled from the predominantly Sunni southern districts of the Mediterranean city of Banias amid fears that pro-government gunmen “might commit a massacre.”
There were conflicting reports of the death toll in Banias on Friday. The Observatory said at least 62 people, including 14 children, were killed in Ras al-Nabeh, a neighbourhood of the town, but that the number could rise as many people were still missing. The Local Co-ordination Committees, another activist group, said 102 people were killed. options — including possible military action.
Israel has said it wants to stay out of the brutal Syria war, but could inadvertently be drawn in as it tries to bolster its deterrence and prevent sophisticated weapons from flowing from Syria to Hezbollah or other extremist groups. Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in mid-2006 that ended in a stalemate. Israel believes Hezbollah has restocked its arsenal with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated the Jewish state would be prepared to take military action to prevent the Islamic militant group from obtaining new weapons that could upset the balance of power. It is especially concerned that Hezbollah will take advantage of the chaos in neighbouring Syria and try to smuggle advanced weapons into Lebanon. These include anti-aircraft missiles, which could hamper Israel’s ability to operate in Lebanese skies, and advanced Yakhont missiles that are used to attack naval ships from the coast. In January, Israeli aircraft struck a shipment of what was believed to be Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles bound for Hezbollah, according to U.S. officials. Israeli officials have strongly hinted they carried out the strike, though there hasn’t been formal confirmation. Neither Hezbollah nor Syria responded to that strike. After Hezbollah’s military infrastructure was badly hit during the 2006 war, the group was rearmed by Iran and Syria. With files from Reuters