The mangled wreckage of Syrian naval vessels smolders at Latakia port on Tuesday in the aftermath of a reported Israeli airstrike, one of more than 60 carried out overnight targeting the country’s war-fighting machine, which Israel fears could be turned against it if it were to fall into the hands of extremist elements. Photo by Bilal Al-Hammoud/EPA-EFE
Dec. 10 (UPI) — Israeli warplanes struck scores of targets across Syria overnight as Israel Defense Forces stepped up its campaign to degrade the fighting capability of Syrian and Iranian forces that could pose a threat to Israel, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The U.K.-based rights group said airstrikes on weapons and ammunition warehouses in Damascus and Al-Salamiyah in central Syria and air defenses factories near Aleppo in the north bring to more than 300 the number of strikes since the fall of the regime of Bashar Al-Assad on Sunday.
“The airstrikes focused on Syrian airbases and their contents, including warehouses, aircraft, radar systems and military signal stations, scientific research centers and weapons and ammunition warehouses in different positions across Syria,” said the SOHR said.
Israel said the action was a defensive response to remove the risk of radical elements inheriting the old regime’s WMD stocks of more lethal armaments that pose a threat to the safety of Israelis.
“That’s why we attack strategic weapons systems like, for example, remaining chemical weapons or long-range missiles and rockets in order that they will not fall into the hands of extremists,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
The claim regarding chemical weapons was backed up Monday by a call by the U.N. Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons urging the new administration in Syria to make the safety of chemical weapons it suspects are stockpiled there a priority.
SOHR detailed an array of sites targeted, with more than 60 airstrikes overnight Monday and into Tuesday alone, including an attack on two Syrian Army regiments in Daraa province that killed two civilians, IRGC warehouses in the Al-Bokamal desert, and stores and weapons warehouses of regime and Iranian forces in the Deir Ezzor desert.
Also attacked were a scientific research center in Hama province, an airbase and warehouse in Homs province, Al Qamishli airport and the Syrian Army’s 54th Regiment in Al-Hasakah province, air defenses guarding Latakia harbor on the Mediterranean coast, and naval vessels and warehouses in Al-Kurnish.
“The attacks resulted in complete suspension of air defenses and put all targeted positions out of operation,” SOHR said.
SOHR, which relies on a network of on-the-ground sources across Syria, said the goal of Israel’s air campaign was to “destroy all weapons and materiel of the army of the future Syria.”
The group’s founder, Rami Abdul Rahman, told the BBC that “Syrian lands are being violated” by Israeli forces.
Israel said the strikes were to prevent weapons falling “into the hands of extremists” while Syria was in a power vacuum after the toppling of Assad and denied its troops had entered Syrian territory, or that its tanks were near Damascus.
“IDF troops are stationed within the buffer zone, as stated in the past,” a spokesperson said.
The buffer zone refers to an “area of separation” supervised by a U.N. peacekeeping force to keep Israeli and Syrian forces apart in the disputed Golan Heights, established in a May 1974 agreement following the Yom Kippur War the previous fall.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel wanted to establish “neighborly and peaceful relations” with the new administration forming in Syria.
“But if we do not, we will do whatever it takes to defend the State of Israel and the border of Israel.”
