What did Israel target in the Syrian city of Masyaf?
Unknown attacks targeted the city last week. Masyaf In the Hama countryside… The Syrian regime accused Israel of carrying out these attacks.
Amidst the amount of leaks that have surfaced over the past few hours about the strike that targeted the Scientific Research Center in the city of Masyaf last Sunday night (September 8/9), new information has been revealed.
In an extensive report in the magazine,Syria WeeklyCharles Lister, director of the Middle East Institute’s Syria and Counterterrorism Programs, provided more details about the Israeli operation.
Lister revealed that Israel had been planning for five years for “Operation Deep Layer,” which targeted the destruction of the SSRC Institute 4000 facility linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Masyaf, where precision missiles were being manufactured.
Four sites targeted
He explained that the first round of Israeli air strikes destroyed at least four Syrian military sites around Masyaf, including an air defense site.
He added that a second round of strikes hit a building in the complex that connects to underground tunnels.
While several helicopters violated Syrian airspace in the third phase of the operation, and dropped dozens of Israeli commandos on the outskirts of those hideouts.
As Israeli soldiers advanced into those underground bunkers, Israeli drones attacked Syrian military forces that were on their way to the site.
Officials familiar with the operation confirmed that the main goal of the ground attack was to destroy the facility.
They added that an important secondary goal was to gather intelligence on Hezbollah’s weapons development, after the Iranian-backed Lebanese party chose this location believing it might be safe from Israeli sherbet, unlike setting up a similar project in Lebanon.
missile development facility
Lester revealed that the facilities in Masyaf and the nearby town of Mahrousa were essential for the development of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, barrel bombs and thermobaric munitions, weapons with special explosive mixtures typically used to destroy buildings and tunnels.
Images taken by ImageSat International (ISI) in August 2022 showed the presence of an S-300 anti-aircraft battery in Masyaf in April of the same year, and then other images of the site after it was emptied of it on August 25 after it was transferred to the port of Tartus. It was said at the time that Russia had moved it in order to strengthen its defenses in its war against Ukraine, which raised some questions about other reasons for this move.
The director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, confirmed that the Scientific Research Center in Masyaf had been transformed since 2018 into a facility under the supervision of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, in order to manufacture and develop missiles for Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, informed sources revealed to the Axios website that elite Israeli forces from the Sayeret Matkal unit carried out this “unusual” operation, adding that they destroyed an Iranian underground missile factory in Masyaf.
She added that the Israeli forces used explosives to destroy the underground facility.
She also revealed that Israel informed the administration of US President Joe Biden about the operation and did not oppose it.
