Israel sent air missiles at Syria Wednesday morning, blowing up cargo which was allegedly en route to the Hezzbollah’s.
By Ali Chiasson
Syria formally complained to the United Nations on Thursday about Wednesday’s Israeli attacks within its borders.
The airstrikes, which killed two people and injured five, were carried out at dawn on Wednesday but the nature of the targets remain unclear, Aljazeera reported.
The Syrian government has confirmedthat an Israeli attackhappened at a military scientific research facility in Jamraya, a city that borders neighbouring Lebanon.
The government in Damascus issued a statement saying that Israeli fighter jets violated the country’s airspace and carried out a direct strike on the research centre.
<h4>LISTEN: Interview with freelance journalist Stephen Starr</h4>
The same site — used to develop weapons and scientific research — .had been targeted before, the statement said.
Regional security resources told Reuters and the Associated Press the target was a convoy carrying weapons bound for Hezbollah bases in Lebanon.
It is believed the convoy was carrying Russian made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles.
Israel has made public concerns before about the Syrian government’s supply of weapons falling in the hands of enemies like Hezbollah.
Israel has not confirmed or denied the allegations.
The convoy was the likely target of the attack.ournalism, said University of Toronto reporter and author Stephen Starr.
“It seems the convoy is much more likely of a target that Israel would be interested in. Obviously the fear among the Israeli government is that it’s being moved to Hezbollah and once it [the convoy] goes over the border into Lebabon its gone, there is no way to trace it,” said Starr, author of the book Revolt in Syria: Eye-Witness to the Uprising.
Starr is a freelance journalist based in Syria but has since returned to Toronto for personal security reasons.
He said he knows the areas on the outskirts of Damascus well and that more information is needed to confirm the attack on the facility.
The research facility “is next to a highway that sees a lot of traffic passing. And I’m a little bit surprised that no videos have shown up on the internet or that no one reported it before the Syrian regime came out themselves and said it.”
“Syria has the option and the capacity to surprise in retaliation,” Aljazeera English reported that in reaction to the attack, Syrian ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdul-Karim Ali, saidThursday.
The attacks strike a country in the midst of a 22-month conflict that has killed over 60,000 people under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.