The Times: Middle East tensions rise after Israeli strike on missile base in Syria

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserv...48&resize=2400

Suspected Israeli cruise missile strikes on military bases and an arms depot in Syria killed scores of regime and possibly Iranian soldiers, according to monitors and state media.

The air-to-surface missiles, said to have been fired from Israeli jets, sent flames into the night sky of northern Syria above the bases near Hama and Aleppo. The blasts were so powerful they triggered earthquake sensors in neighbouring Lebanon and Turkey. Syrian rebel sources said the main target, the Brigade 47 base a few miles from Hama’s city centre, housed the northern command and control centre of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard based in Syria.

The guard has hundreds of officers and advisers helping defend the Assad regime, and backs a further estimated 20,000 Shia militia operatives it has sent in from across the region. However, Israel fears Tehran is also establishing a long-term presence to counter it from Syrian soil.......

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor, said 26 soldiers were killed, most of them Iranian. Tehran state media initially appeared to confirm the attack, saying 18 Iranians died, but later reported an unnamed official denying that any of its countrymen had been killed.

A Syrian rebel intelligence officer operating in north Homs province not far from Hama said the Brigade 47 base was extensive, partly dug into a hillside, and contained a “scientific research centre” used to produce missiles as well as to house the Revolutionary Guard command. Syrian state media and pro-Hezbollah news agencies in Lebanon reported that a major weapons depot was struck.

The Observatory said it contained surface-to-surface missiles - a category that Iran has provided to Hezbollah in large quantities but which may now be intended for the wide range of Shia militias, including Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani Shia fighters, who the Guard is supporting in Syria. “The strike hit the Guard sites in the centre and the ammunition warehouses,” the rebel officer, Captain Abdullah al-Zoubi, told The Times. “An estimate of 80 soldiers and commanders from the Guard and the regime were killed.”......

Senior Israeli officials, who rarely admit military operations in Syria, conspicuously failed to deny suggestions that its air force was responsible for the raids.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/n...n-up-0gv8hnp3g

Iranian forces based in Syria fired a salvo of rockets at Israeli military positions as Tehran vented its fury over President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal.

According to the Israeli military, Iran’s Quds Force, the expeditionary unit of the Revolutionary Guards, launched 20 artillery rockets into the Golan Heights. Israel said that some of the rockets were intercepted and shot down by its Iron Dome missile defence system. A few got though and caused “some damage” to Israeli military installations but no casualties.

The Israeli army said it hit back by striking “dozens” of Iranian sites in Syria, targeting intelligence, storage and logistics as well as the origin of the rockets. Air-raid sirens were heard on the Israeli side of the Golan before the shelling and residents were told to stay in shelters. Israel is not seeking an escalation, a military spokesman said......

If I may respond to the "spokesman's" assertion about not seeking escalation, I'll offer that in the last few weeks, the Israelis have lobbed a few rounds into Syria at (reported) Iranian positions/facilities.
OK, the Iranian Quds force lobs a few rounds back at them.
So the Israelis lob a few back ... no, wait, they do indeed escalate. Dozens of targets isn't "a few."
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dczw9YnWkAAWdJ1.jpg
Methinks the major protests too loudly .... :rolleyes:

This smells of an Israeli false flag operation like the US’s Tonkin Gulf excuse to get deeper into Vietnam.

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