Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Syria: Israel attacks Hizballah-Iran Link, not Assad

Syria: Israel blasts Hezbollah's missile chain

Israeli airstrikes against Syria appear to be concentrating on hitting the

flow of Iranian and Syrian arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon, rather than Assad's

regime.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2013/05/06/Syria-Israel-blasts-Hezbollahs-missile-chain/UPI-72041367859958/

 

Published: May 6, 2013 at 1:05 PM

 

BEIRUT, Lebanon, May 6 (UPI) -- Israeli airstrikes against Syria appear to

be concentrating on hitting the flow of Iranian and Syrian arms, including

surface-to-surface and anti-aircraft, missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon,

rather than President Bashar Assad's embattled regime in Damascus.

 

Israeli warplanes, firing U.S.-built stand-off weapons from undefended

Lebanese air space or over the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights

in southern Syria, blasted targets around Damascus in two waves of predawn

attacks Sunday.

 

At least four targets were hit in the raids, which Israel's Channel 10

television described as Israel's "biggest attack in Syria since 1973" during

Israel's war with Syria and Egypt.

 

The targets were the Jamraya Scientific Studies and Research Center

northwest of Damascus near the Lebanese border and military installations on

Mount Qassiyoun, an escarpment that dominates the city.

 

The Israeli air force carried out a raid Friday against targets at Damascus

International Airport that were reportedly immediately handed over to

Hezbollah's brigades operating in Syria to aid the regime.

 

Jamraya, supposedly the depot for missile convoys into Lebanon, was hit Jan.

30 in the first of the Israeli airstrikes in the current campaign, and like

the other raids has never been officially acknowledged by Israel.

 

The Israelis claim that destroyed a shipment of Russian-built SA-8 Gecko and

SA-17 Grizzly surface-to-air missiles that could challenge Israel's

long-held air supremacy in the region, the Jewish state's most effective

military deterrent.

 

Israeli sources said the weekend attacks sought to destroy a new consignment

of Iranian Fateh-110 -- or Conqueror -- missiles that was reportedly

airlifted to Damascus Airport.

 

These missiles have a range of 190 miles and carry a warhead of 1,300 pounds

of high explosives. They can hit almost any part of Israel, including Tel

Aviv, Jerusalem and the Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert.

 

Most importantly, they're more accurate than most of the 55,000 missiles and

rockets Hezbollah's reported to possess. Indeed, they're the most effective

weapon in Hezbollah's Iranian-supplied arsenal.

 

Israel says that Iran, Hezbollah's mentor, has positioned this vast arsenal,

painstakingly built up by Syria and Iran since the inconclusive 34-day war

between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, to bombard the Jewish state if it

launches preventive attacks on Tehran's nuclear infrastructure.

 

Hezbollah has reportedly had scores of Fateh-110s and M-600s, their

Syrian-engineered derivative, since 2006.

 

By all account, Iran has provided Hezbollah with this vast arsenal -- three

or four times greater than it had in 2006 when 4,000 missiles were fired

into northern Israel -- to create a new strategic front.

 

Israel's also alarmed that Syria's chemical weapons could fall into

Hezbollah's hands.

 

But former Israeli intelligence officer Michael Ross observed that these are

"tangential to the overall issue of Israel's enemies possessing long-range

missile capability."

 

So hitting Hezbollah's missiles, which would be used to carry chemical

warheads, is seen as the next best option to the more dangerous strategy of

trying to destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles, risking massive

deadly fallout.

 

Israel launched its campaign against Hezbollah's weapons program after the

2006 war, when Tehran's plans to provide Hezbollah, as well as Hamas

militants in the Gaza Strip, with long-range weapons went into overdrive.

 

Lebanese analyst Tony Badran says the airstrikes "are the latest installment

in an integrated campaign against Iran's forward positions on Israel's

northern and southern borders."

 

A key tactic was to sabotage Iran's missile program and assassinate

important figures army Hezbollah.

 

The first target for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency was Imad Mughniyeh,

Hezbollah's longtime military mastermind and until Osama bin Laden came

along the world's most wanted terrorist fugitive. He was killed up in

Damascus Feb. 12, 2008, supposedly by Israel.

 

Next to go was Brig. Gen. Mohammed Suleiman, Assad's special adviser on arms

procurement and strategic weapons and arms transfers to Hezbollah. He was

killed by a sniper Aug, 1, 2008, at the luxury resort of Zahabieh on Syria's

Mediterranean coast.

 

On Jan. 20, 2010, Hamas' chief arms procurer, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, was

assassinated in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai.

 

Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, the Revolutionary Guards commander who was

the brains behind Iran's ballistic missile program and who'd created

Hezbollah's missile force in Lebanon, was killed in a mysterious explosion

at a military base west of Tehran.

 

A senior Guards officer disclosed that Moghaddam had worked with Mughniyeh,

Suleiman and Mabhouh.

 

Read more:

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2013/05/06/Syria-Israel-blasts-Hezbollah

s-missile-chain/UPI-72041367859958/#ixzz2SYuqwl6z

 

==========================================

(F)AIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this

message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to

these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed

within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with

"Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976.

The principle of "Fair Use" was established as law by Section 107 of The

Copyright Act of 1976. "Fair Use" legally eliminates the need to obtain

permission or pay royalties for the use of previously copyrighted materials

if the purposes of display include "criticism, comment, news reporting,

teaching, scholarship, and research." Section 107 establishes four criteria

for determining whether the use of a work in any particular case qualifies

as a "fair use". A work used does not necessarily have to satisfy all four

criteria to qualify as an instance of "fair use". Rather, "fair use" is

determined by the overall extent to which the cited work does or does not

substantially satisfy the criteria in their totality. If you wish to use

copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you

must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

 

THIS DOCUMENT MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS

PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

 

 

 

 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment