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| Map locates Jamraya, Syria |
BEIRUT (AP)
-- Israel's air force launched a rare airstrike on a military site
inside Syria, the Syrian government and U.S. officials said Wednesday,
adding a potentially flammable new element to regional tensions already
heightened by Syria's civil war.
The strike
appeared to be the latest salvo in Israel's long-running effort to
disrupt the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah's quest to build an
arsenal capable of defending against Israel's air force and spreading
destruction inside the Jewish state.
U.S.
officials said the target was a convoy of trucks that Israel believed
contained anti-aircraft weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. They
spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to
speak about the operation.
Regional officials
said the shipment included sophisticated Russian-made SA-17
anti-aircraft missiles, which if acquired by Hezbollah would be
"game-changing," enabling the militants to shoot down Israeli jets,
helicopters and surveillance drones.
Regional
security officials said the strike, which occurred overnight Tuesday,
targeted a site near the Lebanese border, while a Syrian army statement
said it destroyed a military research center northwest of the capital,
Damascus. They appeared to be referring to the same incident.
The
Israeli military and a Hezbollah spokesman both declined to comment,
and Syria denied the existence of any such weapons shipment. All
officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to brief the media.
The strike
follows decades of enmity between Israel and allies Syria and Hezbollah,
which consider the Jewish state their mortal enemy. The situation has
been further complicated by the civil war raging in Syria between the
forces of President Bashar Assad and rebel brigades seeking his ouster.
The
war has sapped Assad's power and threatens to deprive Hezbollah of a
key supporter, in addition to its land corridor to Iran. The two
countries provide Hezbollah with the bulk of its funding and arms.
Many
in Israel worry that as Assad loses power, he could strike back by
transferring chemical or advanced weapons to Hezbollah, which is
neighboring Lebanon's most powerful military force and is committed to
Israel's destruction.
Israel and Hezbollah fought an inconclusive 34-day war in 2006 that left 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis dead.
While
the border has been largely quiet since, the struggle has taken other
forms. Hezbollah has accused Israel of assassinating a top commander,
and Israel blamed Hezbollah and Iran for a July 2012 attack on Israeli
tourists in Bulgaria. In October, Hezbollah launched an Iranian-made
reconnaissance drone over Israel, using the incident to brag about its
expanding capabilities.
Israeli officials
believe that despite their best efforts, Hezbollah's arsenal has
markedly improved since 2006, now boasting tens of thousands of rockets
and missiles and the ability to strike almost anywhere inside Israel.
Israel
suspects that Damascus obtained a battery of SA-17s from Russia after
an alleged Israeli airstrike in 2007 that destroyed an unfinished Syrian
nuclear reactor.
Earlier this week, Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of the dangers of Syria's
"deadly weapons," saying the country is "increasingly coming apart."
The
same day, Israel moved a battery of its new "Iron Dome" rocket defense
system to the northern city of Haifa, which was battered by Hezbollah
rocket fire in the 2006 war. The Israeli army called that move
"routine."
Syria, however, cast the strike in a
different light, linked to the country's civil war, which it blames on
terrorists carrying out an international conspiracy.
A
Syrian military statement read aloud on state TV Wednesday said
low-flying Israeli jets crossed into Syria over the Israeli-occupied
Golan Heights and bombed a military research center in the area of
Jamraya, northwest of Damascus.
The strike destroyed the center and damaged a nearby building, killing two workers and wounding five others, the statement said.
The
military denied the existence of any convoy bound for Lebanon, saying
the center was responsible for "raising the level of resistance and
self-defense" of Syria's military.
"This
proves that Israel is the instigator, beneficiary and sometimes executor
of the terrorist acts targeting Syria and its people," the statement
said.
Despite its icy relations with Assad,
Israel has remained on the sidelines of efforts to topple him, while
keeping up defenses against possible attacks.
Israeli
defense officials have carefully monitored Syria's chemical weapons,
fearing Assad could deploy them or lose control of them to extremist
fighters among the rebels.
President Barack
Obama has called the use of chemical weapons a "red line" that if
crossed could prompt direct U.S. intervention, though U.S. officials
have said Syria's stockpiles still appear to be under government
control.
The strike was Israel's first inside
Syria since September 2007, when warplanes destroyed a site that the
U.N. nuclear watchdog deemed likely to be a nuclear reactor. Syria
denied the claim, saying the building was a non-nuclear military site.
Syria
allowed international inspectors to visit the bombed site in 2008, but
it has refused to allow nuclear inspectors new access. This has
heightened suspicions that Syria has something to hide, along with its
decision to level the destroyed structure and build on its site.
In
2006, Israeli warplanes flew over Assad's palace in a show of force
after Syrian-backed militants captured an Israeli soldier in the Gaza
Strip.
And in 2003, Israeli warplanes attacked
a suspected militant training camp just north of the Syrian capital, in
response to an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in the city of Haifa that
killed 21 Israelis.
Syria vowed to retaliate for both attacks but never did.
In
Lebanon, which borders both Israel and Syria, the military and the U.N.
agency tasked with monitoring the border with Israel said Israeli
warplanes have sharply increased their activity in the past week.
Israeli
violations of Lebanese airspace are not uncommon, and it was unclear if
the recent activity was related to the strike in Syria.
Syria's
primary conflict with Israel is over the Golan Heights, which Israeli
occupied in the 1967 war. Syria demands the area back as part of any
peace deal. Despite the hostility, Syria has kept the border quiet since
the 1973 Mideast war and has never retaliated for Israeli attacks.
In
May 2011, only two months after the uprising against Assad started,
hundreds of Palestinians overran the tightly controlled Syria-Israeli
frontier in a move widely thought to have been facilitated by the Assad
regime to divert the world's gaze from his growing troubles at home.
