Free Republic

The spasm of Hamas-provoked violence that gripped the Gaza Strip and parts of southern Israel last week has temporarily halted for the time being. According to credible reports, Israel informed Cairo that it would begin targeting Hamas leaders and commanders if Hamas failed to rein in its assorted thugs and gangsters. Hamas heeded the call, and for good reason. Over the years, Israel’s various security branches have developed a penchant for liquidating dangerous enemies who seek to inflict harm on the Jewish State. Hamas is keenly aware of this fact having recently lost two of its operatives – Mohammad Zawari and Fadi...

The Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, assassinated a top Syrian rocket scientist on Saturday using a car bomb, the New York Times first reported Tuesday. The scientist, Aziz Asbar, led a confidential unit known as “Sector 4” at the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center developing cutting edge missile technology designed to further Syria’s efforts to initiate the long range bombing of Israeli cities. Asbar was killed along with his driver near the research center, which lies in the town of Masyaf and has long been believed to host chemical weapons development. The center has twice been the target of Israeli...

Israeli jets have reportedly targeted a suspected chemical weapons factory in western Syria. The Syrian National Army said four IAF warplanes hit a military site in Hama province, near Masyaf, in the early hours of Thursday morning, killing two soldiers and causing massive damage. It is believed the site was linked to the sarin gas attack in April, which UN investigators said was the work of the Syrian government. The UN confirmed the chemical attacks in Khan Sheikhoun, which resulted in the deaths of dozens of civilians and prompted a US missile attack, were perpetrated by Assad regime forces. Israel...

While the media is busy focusing on the troubling story of the two American soldiers detained at Guantanamo Bay for alleged espionage, both of whom had Syrian connections, another Syria story has passed them by. The names of Ahmad al Halabi, an American of Syrian descent, and Captain James Yee, a convert to Islam who spent four years in Damascus before returning to active service, are now well known. But the name of Nizar Nayouf, a Syrian journalist and human rights activist that was detained last week by French police in Paris, will most probably stay anonymous.   Nayouf?s only...

Footage of Masyaf shows missile shaped items; IAEA urges Syria to let inspectors visit reactor that IAF destroyed in 2007. A compound in western Syria with buildings and hundreds of missile-shaped items has been identified as functionally related to a nuclear reactor Israel destroyed northeast of Damascus in 2007. Satellite footage of the site in Masyaf was obtained by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security and shows a compound built in a ravine and surrounded by what appears to be a line of trenches. While there are no security measures visible in the commercial satellite imagery, ISIS said...

In the last few months, Lebanese terror group Hezbollah appears to have received over a hundred M600 ballistic missiles from Syria. Now, after many people scoured Google Earth satellite photos of Syria and Lebanon, looking for the weapons, something particularly interesting was found in northern Syria, outside the town of Masyaf. Google Earth users noted five compounds, that appear to be closed to all but authorized personnel. Inside these compounds there appeared to be entrances to bunkers dug into adjacent hills. In 2003, Syrian sources reported that Iraqi chemical weapons were sent to Syria, and some were storied in bunkers...