Israeli warplanes carried out an air-strike overnight on Syrian territory near the border with Lebanon. Unnamed US and “regional” (presumably Israeli) officials said the target was a weapons convoy with a shipment that included Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles bound for Hezbollah, which would be strategically “game-changing” in the hands of the militant group. Damascus called the strikes an act of “Israeli arrogance and aggression” that raised the risks that the two-year-old civil conflict in Syria could spread beyond the country’s borders. The regime said a research facility in the Damascus suburbs had been hit, and denied that a convoy had been the target. The attack comes days after Israel expressed concerns that Damascus’ stockpile of chemical weapons could fall into the hands of Hezbollah. Israel had no official statement on the air-strikes.
Three days ealier, Israel’s Maariv newspaper said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “urgently dispatched” his National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror to Moscow to ask Russia to use its influence on Syria to prevent the transfer of chemical weapons. Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom told Israeli radio that any sign that Syria was losing its grip on the weapons could lead to Israeli action, even a pre-emptive strike. Analysts say Israel believes Syria received a battery of SA-17s from Russia after an alleged Israeli air strike in 2007 that destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor. (Middle East Online, NYT, BBC News, Fox News, Jan. 30)
