Israeli strikes on Syria 'co-ordinated with terrorists'

BBC News online - 5 May 2013

A French journalist in Damascus, Jean Pierre Duthion, describes the moment of the "huge explosion", which lit up the night sky

Israeli strikes on Syrian army targets show co-ordination with "terrorists" including al-Qaeda linked militants, the Syrian foreign ministry has said.

The strikes had led to a number of casualties and widespread damage, it reported in a letter sent to the UN.

State media said a research centre and other sites had been hit overnight. Israeli sources said weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon were the target.

The strike, the second in two days, drew condemnation from the Arab League.
Syria's government refers to rebels fighting against it as "terrorists".

On Friday, Israeli aircraft hit a shipment of missiles near the Lebanon border, according to unnamed US and Israeli officials.

Analysis

Jim Muir BBC News, Beirut

Two air strikes in 48 hours does indeed start to look perilously like the involvement in Syria's internal crisis the Israelis have always said they want to avoid, especially when they are visibly taking out military targets on the very edge of Damascus.
Politically such attacks strengthen the Syrian regime in regional and domestic terms, and embarrass the rebels, who are cast as actors in a Western-directed plot to undermine resistance to Israel.
Israel has said that its only concern is to prevent advanced weapons being handed over to Hezbollah. Objectively it would be hard to see Israel's interest in helping trigger an uncontrolled collapse of the regime, leaving the field open to rebel groups among which Islamist radicals currently make the running.
But if the Friday and Sunday attacks herald a pattern of mounting Israeli involvement, it may be increasingly hard to keep the two strands separate.

The BBC's Yolande Knell in Jerusalem says the latest developments are a significant escalation in Israel's involvement in the conflict.

The Syrian foreign ministry statement said three military sites had been hit - a research centre at Jamraya, a paragliding airport in the al-Dimas area of Damascus and a site in Maysaloun.

"The flagrant Israeli attack on armed forces sites in Syria underlines the co-ordination between 'Israel', terrorist groups and... the al-Nusra Front," the statement said, referring to al-Qaeda militants fighting with the rebels.

"The Israeli attack led to the fall of a number of martyrs and wounded from the ranks of Syrian citizens, and led to widespread destruction in these sites and in the civilian districts near to them."
The statement added: "This leaves no room for doubt Israel is the beneficiary, the mover and sometime the executor of the terrorist acts which Syria is witnessing and which target it as a state and people directly or through its tools inside."

The Syrian cabinet held an emergency meeting on the attacks, after which Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi read a statement at a news conference.

Strikes on Syria

• 30 January - Syria says Jamraya research centre attacked, Israel says target was weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon
• 3 May - Strike on shipment of missiles near Lebanon border, US and Israeli officials say
• 5 May - Attack on military sites at Jamraya and Maysaloun, and a paragliding airport in al-Dimas, says Syria. Israel says weapons bound for Hezbollah are the target

He said the attack made the Middle East "more dangerous" and "opens the door wide to all possibilities".

Syria had the right and the duty "to defend its people by all available means," he added.
 
In the latest attack, Damascus was shaken by repeated explosions coming from the north-western suburbs.

Amateur video footage and eyewitness testimony suggested rocket attacks had hit weapons dumps, triggering dramatic orange-flamed blasts.

The area houses numerous military facilities, including the Jamraya research centre, designated by Syria as a scientific research centre "in charge of raising our level of resistance and self-defence".
Damascus-based journalist Alaa Ebrahim told the BBC it was "the biggest explosion" the city had seen since the conflict began two years ago.

Media reaction

• According to Syria's Sana state news agency: "The new Israeli aggression shows the direct involvement of the Zionist entity in the conspiracy against Syria and the relationship that links the armed terrorist groups with the Israeli hostile schemes backed by the Western, regional and some Gulf states"
• Iran's Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi is quoted by Fars news agency reacting to Friday's attack: "The inhuman acts and adventurism of the Zionist regime will strengthen the waves of anti-Zionism in the region and will shorten the life of this fake regime"
• A writer with Israel's Walla website notes that "common sense would seem to mandate" the attack on Syrian targets - but notes that admission of the attack from Syrian state media and the Lebanese militant group must raise fear about retaliation

He said residents living near Jamraya reported feeling a "mild earthquake" just before the blast, indicating that the rockets may have hit an underground facility.

There was strong reaction against the strikes in the rest of the Arab world.
The Egyptian presidency said they "violated international law and principles that will further complicate the situation".

"Despite its strong opposition to bloodshed in Syria and the Syrian army's use of weapons against its people... Egypt rejects at the same time the assault on Syria's capabilities, violation of its sovereignty, and exploitation of its internal crisis under any pretext," the presidency's statement said.

And the Arab League, which has given its Syria seat to the rebels, called on the UN Security Council to "act immediately" to end the attacks.

The Jamraya facility was also apparently hit in an Israeli air strike in January.
Israeli officials confirmed the January strike, but insisted trucks carrying missiles to Hezbollah were the target.

After the latest attack, unnamed Western intelligence sources said the target was a weapons cache heading for Lebanon.

Israel has repeatedly said it would act if it felt advanced weapons were being transferred to militant groups in the region, especially Hezbollah.