“It blowed up real good!”
I’ve been following this story since it first broke, and it’s developed from an accidental fly-over of a Syrian city near the Mediterranean coast to a full-blown attack on a nuclear facility in Syria some 50 miles from the Iraqi border. It’s interesting to note however that the current official story is that the materal was given to the Syrians from the North Koreans. However, I’m interested in knowing whether Saddam Hussein transferred most of his nuclear technology to Syria before the war.
So what’s next? Syria has already complained to the United Nations and says that it is “mulling over its options” regarding the attack by Israel. Syria’s President Assad is already under pressure from Iran for being too soft on Israel and for not invading Israel during last summer’s war. I believe that the United Nations will pass a resolution comdenming Israel because the UN is controlled by an anti-American and anti-Jewish bloc of countries. That’s a fact, not an opinion.
I also believe that Syria will launch some sort of atttack against Israel, either on its own or through its Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon. I do not believe that it will be a token attack, but rather something more significant. Will it bring all-out war between Israel and Syria and others in the region? I believe so.
Here are some excerpts frorm today’s story in the Sunday Times (Great Britain). Take the time to look at the comments. It’s breathtaking how many people are in denial and — there’s no other word for it — just plain stupid. Also note how the attack was coordinated with the United States and that Russia warned Syria of the planned attack by Israel.
It was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.
At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.
Ten days after the jets reached home, their mission was the focus of intense speculation this weekend amid claims that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea.
The Israeli government was not saying. “The security sources and IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] soldiers are demonstrating unusual courage,” said Ehud Olmert, the prime minister. “We naturally cannot always show the public our cards.”
Andrew Semmel, a senior US State Department official, said Syria might have obtained nuclear equipment from “secret suppliers”, and added that there were a “number of foreign technicians” in the country.
Asked if they could be North Korean, he replied: “There are North Korean people there. There’s no question about that.” He said a network run by AQ Khan, the disgraced creator of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, could be involved.
But why would nuclear material be in Syria? Known to have chemical weapons, was it seeking to bolster its arsenal with something even more deadly?
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Once the mission was under way, Israel imposed draconian military censorship and no news of the operation emerged until Syria complained that Israeli aircraft had violated its airspace. Syria claimed its air defences had engaged the planes, forcing them to drop fuel tanks to lighten their loads as they fled.
But intelligence sources suggested it was a highly successful Israeli raid on nuclear material supplied by North Korea.
Washington was rife with speculation last week about the precise nature of the operation. One source said the air strikes were a diversion for a daring Israeli commando raid, in which nuclear materials were intercepted en route to Iran and hauled to Israel. Others claimed they were destroyed in the attack.
There is no doubt, however, that North Korea is accused of nuclear cooperation with Syria, helped by AQ Khan’s network. John Bolton, who was undersecretary for arms control at the State Department, told the United Nations in 2004 the Pakistani nuclear scientist had “several other” customers besides Iran, Libya and North Korea.
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By its actions, Israel showed it is not interested in waiting for diplomacy to work where nuclear weapons are at stake.
As a bonus, the Israelis proved they could penetrate the Syrian air defence system, which is stronger than the one protecting Iranian nuclear sites.
This weekend President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran sent Ali Akbar Mehrabian, his nephew, to Syria to assess the damage. The new “axis of evil” may have lost one of its spokes.
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