If true, good going, I approve of any action to keep WMD’s from falling into the hands of the jihadis.
Vice Premier Silvan Shalom on Wednesday spoke to Israel Radio following reports that Israel Air Force warplanes struck a target on the Syrian-Lebanese border overnight, hours after Lebanon reported a series of three overflights by Israel in its airspace.
“The entire world has said more than once that it takes developments in Syria very seriously, developments which can be in negative directions,” he told Israel Radio, recalling that President Barack Obama has warned Syrian President Bashar Assad of US action if his forces use chemical weapons.
UPDATE, red line crossed: A source among rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said an air strike around dawn (0430 GMT) blasted a convoy on a mountain track about 5 kilometers (3 miles) south of where the main Damascus-Beirut highway crosses the border. Its load probably included high-tech anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles. More here.
Israel strikes at Syria-Lebanon border, sources say
Alleged airstrike comes day after Lebanon reported three separate overflights by IAF jets; Israel increasingly concerned over fate of Syrian chemical weapons.
A western diplomat and three regional security sources said Wednesday that Israel Air Force warplanes struck a target on the Syrian-Lebanese border overnight, hours after Lebanon reported a series of three overflights by Israel in its airspace.
Israel has expressed increasing concern over the fate of Syrian chemical and conventional weapons as the country slides further into chaos after almost two years of civil war.
The sources, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, had no further information about what might have been hit or where precisely the attack happened, but the news website Al-Monitor quoted unnamed sources as saying that the target had been an arms convoy in Syria, close to the Lebanon border.
A Western diplomat in the region who was asked about the strike said “something has happened”, without elaborating.
An unnamed security source told AFP: “The Israeli air force blew up a convoy which had just crossed the border from Syria into Lebanon.”
NOTE: According to Brig. Gen. (ret.) Amnon Sofrin: the Israeli “red line,” under which Jerusalem has committed to preventing the transfer of Syria’s nonconventional weapons either to Hezbollah deliberately or to opposition forces capturing Syrian arms caches. The Syrian nonconventional arsenal is considered the largest in the world:
“I think that if we have solid evidence shared by our own partners all over the world, that chemical warheads are being transferred from Syria to Lebanon, to the Hezbollah, I think that no one will condemn Israel for trying to prevent it.”
“The first one is called Sarin… [a] nerve gas. And the second one, which is more frightening for us and more, let’s say severe with its consequences, is called VX, and this one is lasting. Meaning… it stays on the ground on every place it is being launched to, for many, many hours and many days.”
“About quantities in Syria, there are lets says hundreds of warheads, I don’t know the right figure, but we are speaking about hundreds.”
