"unused military building"
Posted on 10/02/2007 7:47:47 AM PDT by Danae
Israel on Tuesday began to lift its strict veil of secrecy on an air strike in Syria last month, allowing the media to report on the raid without attributing such reports to foreign sources.
The censor did not release any other details for publication.
The censor's statement implied that Israel was, for the first time, confirming that the IAF carried out the raid.
Israel has kept quiet on the subject until now. However, Syrian President Bashar Assad told the BBC on Monday that IAF jets had hit an "unused military building" in his country.
Assad said Israel's air raid on northern Syria showed Israel's "visceral antipathy towards peace," according to excerpts posted on the BBC's Web site.
The comments were the first by the Syrian leader about the incursion, which raised speculation that warplanes had hit weapons headed for Hizbullah or even a nascent nuclear installation - reports Damascus has repeatedly denied.
Journalists in Israel are required to submit articles related to security and military issues to the censor, which can make changes to stories or bar publication altogether. In a rare move, the censor's office issued a special directive about the Syrian air raid, specifically prohibiting publication of any details.
Violation of the censorship orders can result in the loss of press credentials or other sanctions.
Although Israel did not come out with an official statement following the incident, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu broke the silence two weeks afterwards when he said he had congratulated Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on the strike.
In an interview with Channel 1, Netanyahu said that he was "part of the matter from the beginning" and that he knew to separate matters of national security from politics.
The overflight was first reported on Syrian television just after the attack, and various reports regarding the strike's target have circulated in the press over the past month.
The Washington Post reported that the target had been a facility involved in a joint Syrian-North Korean nuclear project - a claim backed by former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton.
Britain's Sunday Times, meanwhile, reported just over a week ago that soldiers from the IDF's elite General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal) had seized North Korean nuclear material from a secret Syrian military installation before it was bombed by IAF jets.
The paper claimed that the IAF attack on September 6 was sanctioned by the US after the Americans were given proof that the material was indeed nuclear-related. It also stated that Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who used to head the unit, personally oversaw the operation.
However, Syrian officials have repeatedly called news of the strike lies and fabrications, and on Monday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem accused the US of inventing these reports.
"Some sources in the United States have spread rumors and fabricated news in order to justify this act of aggression," Moallem charged. "By distorting the facts they have become Israel's accomplices in this act of aggression."
Speaking to the UN, Moallem said the act was proof that the Jewish state wanted to escalate tensions.
Yaakov Katz and AP contributed to this report.
maybe they could get Colin Powell to present their photos to the UN. In all seriousness, it will change nothing. This has never been about the truth, it has always been about racist, psychopathic, hatred of jews (and now americans).
Wasn't Syria just yesterday denying that any raid even occurred?!
That is really good! The bigger picture is that Syria’s air defense systems are garbage!
Check out Silence in Syria, Panic in Iran.
Sorry for Double post
The North Koreans are *known* for very few things:
1. Missile Tech
2. Nuclear Program
3. Counterfeiting U.S. currency
Syria is known for very few things:
1. Smuggling
2. Chemical WMD programs (advanced)
3. Terror cells (with or without Damascus approval)
What has made it public has been that Israel his something inside Syria that the U.S. approved after seeing some hard evidence from Israel related to the site in question, and that North Korea has made an unusual protest against this raid (NK usually sticks to Asian topics).
But a good bet would be that whatever was hit had more in common with the above "knowns" than pure chance...
For instance, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Al Qaeda "In Iraq" had its leadership in neighboring Syria. Stranger things have happened in history.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Syria was letting North Korea counterfiet, smuggle, or launder U.S. currency, for another.
I think that it is safe to say that some North Korean missile tech is in Syria, too.
“Israel his” should be “Israel hit”
The fact: there was a raid.
All the rest of the article is imaginary.
There was no raid. No raid. Got it? If there had been a raid, the bombs of the Zionist infidels would have been caught by the hand of Allah in mid-air.
However, if this supposed raid,which is a figment of the Zionists' imagination, had actually taken place, which it did not, Allah would have guided those bombs He could not catch in mid air (very few because it is written that Allah the All-Catching is the best fielder to ever play baseball, a game invented by Muslims in the 12C, which everyone admits was good times for us, to while away the time between attacks on Christian settlements) to strike disused buildings which we had scheduled for demolition anyway and which contained no weapons or radioactive material except for those glow-in-the-dark wristwatches sold on the streets of our major cities by those not in the rug business.
The aircraft of the Zionists did not penetrate our airspace. If they were to penetrate our sacred air space, they were so low that it counts as being on the ground, which our learned imams tell us is not airspace. Plus, what is not on our radar does not exist. That is written in the warranty documents that came with the easy-to-assemble electronic units we purchased from Mr. Putin and other fine gentlemen from the former Soviet Union, after whom we modeled our very own secret police who know everything.
On the day of our victory over Zionism, I shall strafe your place of infidel worship in my personal MiG21, which we have painted with a special paint from Russia which makes us impervious to bullets and invisible to radar.
Yours truly,
Damascus Danny
(formerly aka Baghdad Bob)
Imagine being the guy in charge trying to explain it.
ROFL
Keep the 9/6 stuff comin’. This junkie can’t get through the day without something about it.
"unused military building"
They could have identified it as a baby milk formula plant!
Or a buidling hosting a “wedding party.”
Need graphic!
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