Posted on 09/15/2007 8:24:09 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
September 16, 2007
Israelis ‘blew apart Syrian nuclear cache’
Secret raid on Korean shipment
Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv, Sarah Baxter in Washington and Michael Sheridan
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.”
The Syrians were also keeping mum. “I cannot reveal the details,” said Farouk al-Sharaa, the vice-president. “All I can say is the military and political echelon is looking into a series of responses as we speak. Results are forthcoming.” The official story that the target comprised weapons destined for Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite group, appeared to be crumbling in the face of widespread scepticism.
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?
Alternatively, could it be hiding equipment for North Korea, enabling Kim Jong-il to pretend to be giving up his nuclear programme in exchange for economic aid? Or was the material bound for Iran, as some authorities in America suggest?
According to Israeli sources, preparations for the attack had been going on since late spring, when Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, presented Olmert with evidence that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea.
The Israeli spy chief apparently feared such a device could eventually be installed on North-Korean-made Scud-C missiles.
“This was supposed to be a devastating Syrian surprise for Israel,” said an Israeli source. “We’ve known for a long time that Syria has deadly chemical warheads on its Scuds, but Israel can’t live with a nuclear warhead.”
An expert on the Middle East, who has spoken to Israeli participants in the raid, told yesterday’s Washington Post that the timing of the raid on September 6 appeared to be linked to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying North Korean material labelled as cement but suspected of concealing nuclear equipment.
The target was identified as a northern Syrian facility that purported to be an agricultural research centre on the Euphrates river. Israel had been monitoring it for some time, concerned that it was being used to extract uranium from phosphates.
According to an Israeli air force source, the Israeli satellite Ofek 7, launched in June, was diverted from Iran to Syria. It sent out high-quality images of a northeastern area every 90 minutes, making it easy for air force specialists to spot the facility.
Early in the summer Ehud Barak, the defence minister, had given the order to double Israeli forces on its Golan Heights border with Syria in anticipation of possible retaliation by Damascus in the event of air strikes.
Sergei Kirpichenko, the Russian ambassador to Syria, warned President Bashar al-Assad last month that Israel was planning an attack, but suggested the target was the Golan Heights.
Israeli military intelligence sources claim Syrian special forces moved towards the Israeli outpost of Mount Hermon on the Golan Heights. Tension rose, but nobody knew why.
At this point, Barak feared events could spiral out of control. The decision was taken to reduce the number of Israeli troops on the Golan Heights and tell Damascus the tension was over. Syria relaxed its guard shortly before the Israeli Defence Forces struck.
Only three Israeli cabinet ministers are said to have been in the know – Olmert, Barak and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister. America was also consulted. According to Israeli sources, American air force codes were given to the Israeli air force attaché in Washington to ensure Israel’s F15Is would not mistakenly attack their US counterparts.
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.
Some of his evidence came from the CIA, which had reported to Congress that it viewed “Syrian nuclear intentions with growing concern”.
“I’ve been worried for some time about North Korea and Iran outsourcing their nuclear programmes,” Bolton said last week. Syria, he added, was a member of a “junior axis of evil”, with a well-established ambition to develop weapons of mass destruction.
The links between Syria and North Korea date back to the rule of Kim Il-sung and President Hafez al-Assad in the last century. In recent months, their sons have quietly ordered an increase in military and technical cooperation.
Foreign diplomats who follow North Korean affairs are taking note. There were reports of Syrian passengers on flights from Beijing to Pyongyang and sightings of Middle Eastern businessmen from sources who watch the trains from North Korea to China.
On August 14, Rim Kyong Man, the North Korean foreign trade minister, was in Syria to sign a protocol on “cooperation in trade and science and technology”. No details were released, but it caught Israel’s attention.
Syria possesses between 60 and 120 Scud-C missiles, which it has bought from North Korea over the past 15 years. Diplomats believe North Korean engineers have been working on extending their 300-mile range. It means they can be used in the deserts of northeastern Syria – the area of the Israeli strike.
The triangular relationship between North Korea, Syria and Iran continues to perplex intelligence analysts. Syria served as a conduit for the transport to Iran of an estimated £50m of missile components and technology sent by sea from North Korea. The same route may be in use for nuclear equipment.
But North Korea is at a sensitive stage of negotiations to end its nuclear programme in exchange for security guarantees and aid, leading some diplomats to cast doubt on the likelihood that Kim would cross America’s “red line” forbidding the proliferation of nuclear materials.
Christopher Hill, the State Department official representing America in the talks, said on Friday he could not confirm “intelligence-type things”, but the reports underscored the need “to make sure the North Koreans get out of the nuclear business”.
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.
“On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead.”
This is the other quote I would love to hear the Who What where why and especially.... HOW?
We’ve been following this for about a week, but the nuke angle is kinda new.
Your point re. the Saudis etc is well taken. There is no love lost at present by Egypt, Jordan and the Saudis for Syria, since Assad started playing footsie with AquaVelvanijad. This may account for the crickets chirping.
I sure hope that you're right that we may begin making high impact surgical strikes in the near future. And I agree with your assessment of the impact of such strikes.
I can tell you that the Israelis have made enormous changes within the military establishment. They are not the same IDF that lurched through the last Hizbollah campaign.
Interestingly, they (the IDF) have had a surge in the number of Israelis who have signed up as career military, especially among the more religious Israelis, which is an interesting trend. This indicates an understanding, particularly among the Orthodox community of the dangers Israel is facing.
Additionally, many of this new influx have volunteered for Special Forces.
The chain of command has been totally retooled, training has been stepped up, training procedures have been corrected. The Israelis have not been messing around.
The smartest thing that they have done is to bring Barak in as Defense Minister. He's a schmuck politically, but he is enormously savvy militarily.
Suspicious lack of complaints -— frommany quarters.
But - IF - the commando team failed, or if they were cqptured or the planes were shot down, then we’d have heard about it certainly.
So, perhaps it is a success.
The Rooskies have a deal to sell about 50 new anti-aircraft systems to Syria. Iran has a deal to get 10 of those from Syria.
In any event, if the Syrians have any of them operable, I guess Iran has just learned what their value is.
yitbos
We can observe and listen all we want but if the Shahab bases, the IRGC bases, the nuke facilities, the sub bases, the naval assets, etc... are all still there what good does it do us?
There comes a time when you have to stop watching and start acting
The other positive is that that can all be done with virtually no casualties and much higher public support
They're all operational. And they're worth bupkes, apparently.
Agree totally. The time to act is now.
Perhaps a HALO jump, e.g., high altitude, low opening parachute jump.
It wasn’t nuclear.
We’ve been tracking and boarding all ships from North Korea with suspicious cargos.
It was a No Dong missile base that was destroyed in Syria.
Having a guy who blasted his way through the streets of Beirut in a wig and a dress does tend to make one go for the gusto.
I thought given Gates’ CIA background he might be more apt for this, but he was in the DI and I guess has no zeal for the game.
Unfortunately for the IDF, Olmert is still in charge. Someone who takes a month to mobilize 30,000 guys, who keeps tens of thousands of troops mulling about on the border, who sends in battalion and brigade sized incursions, etc...
I’ve always felt that regardless of US action against Iran, Israel will never let them go nuclear. The difference is that Israel is probably limited to an Osirak like strike that takes out 1 or 2 locations whereas the USAF and Navy can totally eliminate Iran’s military infrastructure in a matter of days.
That’s the most comprehensive explanation I have seen to date on what might have happened. It’s troubling because we still don’t know exactly what the Syrians/NoKos/Mullahs were up to, and doubly troubling that the American Media is too busy trying to lose in Iraq to cover this...
Sometimes there is no use complaining...when promises to come to mutual aid have been made...when frantic military preparations are underway...the arab neighbors of Israel certainly know the value of surprise by now...
Just as a thought...the target was in NE Syria...the shortest distance across Syria would be for the Shaldag commandos to enter Syria across the Iraq border....
Curiouser and curiouser...
Suggests a successful Israeli disninformation campaign.
because they had a small force of israelis on ground they OWN the Syrians? I am as happy as the next guy that they did this, but let’s be realistic.
No surprise. The site was about 50 miles from the Iraqi border. A detection at long range with no satisfactory answer could lead to a long range engagement. Remember that the Phoenix missile could engage at greater than 50 miles.
also crystallizes Russian intent...
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