Israel\u2019s defense minister strongly signaled Sunday that his country was behind an airstrike in Syria last week, telling a high profile security conference that Israeli threats to take pre-emptive action against its enemies are not empty. \u201cWe mean it,\u201d Ehud Barak declared.<\/p>\n
Israel has not officially confirmed its planes attacked a site near Damascus, targeting ground-to-air missiles apparently heading for Lebanon, but its intentions have been beyond dispute. During the 22 months of civil war in Syria, Israeli leaders have repeatedly expressed concern that high-end weapons could fall into the hands of enemy Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militants.<\/p>\n
For years, Israel has been charging that Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iran have been arming Hezbollah, which fought a monthlong war against Israel in 2006.<\/p>\n
U.S. officials say the target was a convoy of sophisticated Russian SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles. Deployed in Lebanon, they could have limited Israel\u2019s ability to gather intelligence on its enemies from the air.<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, Syrian TV broadcast video of the Wednesday attack site for the first time, showing destroyed vehicles and a damaged building identified as a scientific research center. The U.S. officials said the airstrike hit both the building and the convoy.<\/p>\n
In his comments Sunday in Munich, Barak came close to confirming that his country was behind the operation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot add anything to what you have read in the newspapers about what happened in Syria several days ago,\u201d Barak told the gathering of top diplomats and defense officials from around the world.<\/p>\n
Then he went on to say, \u201cI keep telling frankly that we said \u2013 and that\u2019s proof when we said something we mean it \u2013 we say that we don\u2019t think it should be allowed to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon.\u201d He spoke in heavily accented English.<\/p>\n
In Syria, Assad said during a meeting with a top Iranian official that his country would confront any aggression, his first comment on the airstrike.<\/p>\n
\u201cSyria, with the awareness of its people, the might of its army and its adherence to the path of resistance, is able to face the current challenges and confront any aggression that might target the Syrian people,\u201d Assad was quoted as saying by the state news agency SANA.<\/p>\n
He made the remarks during a meeting with Saeed Jalili, the head of Iran\u2019s National Security Council. Iran is Syria\u2019s closest regional ally. Jalili, on a three-day visit to Syria, has pledged Tehran\u2019s continued support for Assad\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n
Jalili, who also serves as his country\u2019s top nuclear negotiator, condemned the Israeli raid, stressing that it has proven the \u201caggressive nature of Israel and its threat of the region\u2019s security and stability.\u201d<\/p>\n
The chief of Iran\u2019s powerful Revolutionary Guards said Sunday that Tehran also hopes Syria will strike back against Israel.<\/p>\n
Syrian opposition leaders and rebels have criticized Assad for not responding to the airstrike, calling it proof of his weakness and acquiescence to the Jewish state.<\/p>\n
The Syrian defense minister, Gen. Fahd Jassem al-Freij said Israel attacked the center because rebels were unable to capture it. Al-Freij called the rebels Israel\u2019s \u201ctools.\u201d He told the state TV, \u201cThe heroic Syrian Arab Army, that proved to the world that it is a strong army and a trained army, will not be defeated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahmad Ramadan, an opposition leader, said Syria\u2019s claim that the rebels are cooperating with Israel \u201cis an attempt by the regime to cover its weakness in defending the country against foreign aggression.\u201d He spoke by telephone from Turkey.<\/p>\n
While Israel has remained officially silent on the airstrike, there seemed little doubt that Israel carried it out, especially given the confirmation from the U.S., its close ally….<\/p>\n
Read more…..http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/20130203-israel-defence-minister-barak-comments-air-strike-syria-arms-convoy-assad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israel\u2019s defense minister strongly signaled Sunday that his country was behind an airstrike in Syria last week, telling a high profile security conference that Israeli threats to take pre-emptive action against its enemies are not empty. \u201cWe mean it,\u201d Ehud Barak declared. Israel has not officially confirmed its planes attacked a site near Damascus, targeting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-5620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5620"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=5620"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=5620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}