ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS, BBC (UK)
JERUSALEM – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak appeared to admit for the first time that his country launched an air raid last week on a military research center near Damascus. Barak’s apparent acknowledgment of the Jan. 30 strike on the Syrian target was followed up Monday by a veiled threat against Israel from Iran, a key ally of the Damascus regime.
“They will regret this recent aggression,” Saeed Jalili, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told a news conference in Damascus a day after holding talks there with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to Reuters.
Speaking in Munich on Sunday, Barak left little doubt that Israel was behind the strike on the Syrian facility that was believed to contain weapons bound for Lebanon. “I keep telling frankly that we said – and that’s proof when we said something we mean it – we say that we don’t think it should be allowed to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon,” reports the Associated Press.
There had been little doubt as to whether Israel was behind the raid before this, as US officials confirmed it came from their allies. The attack was meant to destroy a convoy of SA-17 surface-to-air missiles used to destroy reconnaissance aircrafts gathering intelligence for Israel.
Here’s the video broadcast by Syrian TV of the aftermath:
Bashar al-Assad condemned the operation, broadcasted footage of the aftermath and claimed his country was able to cope with “current threats…and aggression,” reports the BBC.
It’s not the first time Israel is held accountable for an air raid in Syria, the last one was in 2007 on a nuclear reactor and arms convoy heading for Hamas headquarters.
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