Last Updated on 10/09/2024 by Arun jain
Airstrikes in Syria killed at least 18 people and wounded dozens more, Syrian state news media reported Monday, blaming Israel for the attacks in and around a city known as a center for the development of weapons, including missiles.
The Syrian state news agency, SANA, said several sites were hit in and near Masyaf, a small town in northwestern Syria; Most of its reports were unclear as to what, exactly, had been struck, but some said the targets were military sites. Israeli officials declined to comment on the attack.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that tracks the conflict in Syria, confirmed the strikes and said they struck an area containing a scientific research institute where work was carried out on “developing short- and medium-range precision missiles”. is It cited unnamed sources in the Syrian security forces.
Independent experts, Israeli officials and the US government have described the organization as a center Weapons research and developmentAided by Syria’s ally Iran, the work there includes chemical, biological and potentially nuclear weapons, as well as missiles used by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia group in Lebanon that is fighting Israel.
Israel has struck several times in the past at Masyaf, about 25 miles from the Mediterranean coast.
The airstrikes late Sunday night and early Monday morning were among the deadliest attacks in Syria in months. SANA said that in addition to the 18 dead, 37 people were injured in the strike, including six in critical condition. The agency said the strike damaged road, water, power and telephone infrastructure.
This The Syrian Observatory said the death toll was high At least 25 people were killed, including Syrian fighters, people working with Iranian militias and civilians. It was not possible to independently confirm the reported toll.
The attacks added to an already volatile standoff between Israel and Iran’s allies and proxies across the region.
in the past, Israel has admitted to hundreds of attacks on targets in Syria that it says are linked to Iran. A series of airstrikes in March near The northern Syrian city of Aleppo At least 44 people were killed, including 36 Syrian soldiers and seven members of Hezbollah, the observatory said.
1 April strike Killed the commanding general of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, his deputy, several other Iranian officials and members of allied forces at the Iranian embassy compound in the capital Damascus.
Network of Tehran Proxy Militia Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and multiple groups in Iraq.
But Tehran has reserved most of it Generous support As for Syria, it supports not only the government but also the armed groups operating there. Iran’s support was vital to Bashar al-Assad’s regime surviving the civil war that began in 2011.
A close connection is to Iran’s own revolution in 1979, when Syria supported the new government in Tehran as others abstained. Iran, for its part, sees Syria as a strategic partner that gives Hezbollah access to land.
The war between Hamas and Israel, which has fueled tensions on multiple fronts across the region, began on Oct. 7 is close to its one-year mark.
On Monday, the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for northern Gaza after it said rockets fired from the area had entered Israeli territory. According to a social media post by Israeli military spokesman Avichai Adrei, the latest evacuation order covers parts of the city of Beit Lahia. The zone includes areas where, according to the United Nations, Israel has agreed to cease fighting for a few hours each day as part of a large-scale polio vaccination program.
The Gazan Ministry of Health reported that more than 441,000 children in central and southern Gaza received their first dose of the vaccine in the first two phases of the campaign; A third phase of the campaign in Gaza was expected to begin on Tuesday in the north, reaching 150,000 more, according to UNICEF spokesman Jonathan Crixus. It was unclear how the evacuation orders would affect the local truce in fighting that Israel and Hamas have agreed to.
Diplomatic efforts to broker a comprehensive ceasefire continue, with both Hamas and Israel accusing each other of standing in the way of a deal. Last week, two American officials told The New York Times that Hamas had recently tightened its terms for the release of hostages, making more demands on the release of Palestinian prisoners in the early stages of the deal.
On Monday, Izzat al-Rishke, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, issued a statement saying it was a “lie” that the group had demanded the increase. He said it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who put new conditions on the deal.
The talks are being pushed by the Biden administration, which argues that a cease-fire in Gaza would ease tensions across the region and bring home dozens of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.
Israel and Iran A secret, low-level war has been fought for decadesBut there are attacks across borders increased Since Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza on October 7 in response to a Hamas-led attack.
Hezbollah and the Israeli military have traded fire on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon for months, and Iran launched a wave of missiles and drones at Israel in April in response to a strike on its embassy complex in Syria. Iran also vowed to retaliate in July The top leader of Hamas were killed in Tehran, although a large-scale response has not yet occurred.
An overnight strike in Syria affected an area on the campus of the Center for Scientific Studies and Research. The organization has several sites across Syria, and Masyaf is where the country’s military research institute maintains one of its most important weapons-development facilities, experts say.
The United States banned US citizens and residents from doing business with the center in 2005, and in 2007, the Treasury Department froze the assets of the center’s subsidiaries, listing the SSRC as a “Syrian government agency responsible for the development and production of unconventional weapons and missiles.” deliver them.”
Israeli security experts at the nonprofit Alma Research and Education Center, in August 2023 report At the Syrian Research Center, it said it “serves as a growth engine for the development and production of advanced conventional weapons based on Iranian technology on Syrian soil.” The report noted that the center’s “operation shortens and saves the logistics of transferring weapons from Iran, which is more vulnerable to damage/disruption and interception.”
Believed to be Israel Targeted scientists Previously on Masyaf site. In 2018, Aziz Asbar, one of Syria’s most important rocket scientists who headed a top-secret weapons-development unit and worked closely with Iran, was killed in a car bomb explosion in Masyaf, apparently carried out by the Israeli spy agency Mossad. . .
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