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Did this woman die because her genitals were cut? And that is after the missiles we had absorbed in the Lebanon War and even before we had an interception system like Iron Dome. This is right next door. WebThe Bombing of Shallal occurred on 23 January 1965 during the War over Water when the Israeli Air Force bombed the Syrian water pumping station at Shallal to prevent the A Syrian military statement did not give details about the We had a big hug. However we, under his orders, did not let go of it for a long time.. In mid-June, Olmert arrived in the United States for a meeting with Bush. As was its wont, Damascus denied everything, and the IAEA did nothing about all this despite Syrias blatant violation of a treaty to which it was a signatory. The company's analysts said the work and the presence of newly deployed helicopters suggested the base was gaining importance for the Syrian government and Russia as they sought to counter jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State (IS) in Homs province. In mid-August, Olmert convened a dramatic cabinet meeting to discuss the implications of the attack. WebThe Syrian Civil War is an ongoing violent conflict in Syria between pro-democratic insurgents and Syrian President Bashar al-Assads long-standing dynastic regime. The then-newly appointed chief of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, found an army that was depressed and mired in a deep crisis after some of its top brass had resigned, while others were still fighting the conclusions of the internal investigations and on edge about what might be said about them in the final report on the Second Lebanon War. This became a source of outcry across Syria and numerous intellectuals began highlighting the new regime's sectarian character through media outlets and publications. Rubble was scattered around the building and the place looked fairly neglected, perhaps intentionally so. The US military has defended as "legitimate" an air strike attack which killed dozens of people in Syria in 2019. The prime minister dwelled in particular on the meaning of life in Israel under the shadow of a nuclear threat and warned that this was a condition that was liable to cause profound demoralization of Israels populace. The material left no room for doubt: The plutogenic reactor that Y. had written about did indeed exist it had been found in the heart of the desert and was in advanced stages of construction, and nearing completion. Haaretz.com, the online English edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, gives you breaking news, analyses and opinions about Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World. There was unease because the home front was not aware of what might be waiting for it. Barak also thought an attack could embroil Israel in a war with Syria, in which it would again become clear that the IDF and the home front were not properly prepared. The air force dubbed the plan with the code name Soft Melody (the general staff operation had a different code name, Ein Habasor, while at Military Intelligence they referred to the preparations as Outside the Box). Now, a Haaretz investigation goes behind the scenes of the 2007 strike on 'The Cube,' shortly before it became an active nuclear reactor: From the intelligence failures and American foot-dragging, to the arguments at the top levels and the threats of a total war with Syria. At the time, the members were bound together by their goal of building a prosperous nation. Assad was building a plutonium nuclear reactor, he argued. Major Y., a researcher in MIs technology branch, composed a document headed An Issue for Examination. This is a well-known procedure in MI whereby, with the approval of the head of the organization and the head of the research division, a researcher is permitted to publish a dissenting assessment, even if it is not accepted by the chain of command, in order to prompt examination of a new hypothesis. [42] Nasser also announced his withdrawal from the 17 April unity agreement.[40][42]. The Haaretz investigation of the bombing of the nuclear reactor is based on conversations with 25 of the individuals who were involved in the operation and in the events connected to it, in Israel and in the United States. We had to figure out an answer on the spot. The 1963 Syrian coup d'tat, referred to by the Syrian government as the 8 March Revolution (Arabic: ), was the successful seizure of power in Syria by the military committee of the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. This was, of course, one of the two scenarios that had been feared in Israel during the summer. But the flight to the target was relatively calm, without our getting discovered and without any direct threat. At about 03:40 local time (00:40 GMT) on Friday, two US Navy destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea launched a total of 59 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) at the airbase. Shelly said to us: You are champions.. The people who were seen nearby mostly arrived on motorcycles; it looked as though the structure stood empty at night. "We are assessing the results of the strike," he added. The prime minister was concerned about two possibilities that could thwart the operation a prior leak to the media or the reactor becoming hot (activated) a development that intelligence assessed was liable to happen toward the end of September. In January 1964 an Arab League summit meeting convened in Cairo and decided: The establishment of Israel is the basic threat that the Arab nation in its entirety has agreed to forestall. The Syrian silence helped this. The Nasserists became allies of the Ba'ath, even while they supported Gamal Abdel Nasser and the reestablishment of the UAR. The picture was stolen from the laptop of the director of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission. Rather, the question is whether to take a risk in order to prevent greater risks and for that reason there is no alternative to demolishing the reactor., Associates of Olmert describe an angry correspondence with Barak that day, which was conducted via messengers. While they failed to approve it politically, they nevertheless seemed determined to adhere to the technical details of the agreement. You feel a slight shaking of the wing as they are released. We went through the whole process until the correct decision was made. The spokesman also described the effectiveness of the US strike as "extremely low", saying only 23 missiles had reached Shayrat. A cell of Mossad agents from the Keshet unit broke into the apartment where Othman was staying and within less than an hour vacuumed up the information that was on the Syrian officials personal computer, which had remained in the apartment while he was taking part in the conference. The second option that was ultimately accepted, was sketched by the air force commander on a paper napkin in a brief conversation with the prime minister. Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved. The intelligence people say they told him: There are no more question marks. This isnt about bunkers with centrifuges 1,500 kilometers [more than 900 miles] away. Shkedi emerged from the control booth [in the command post] only after the planes were out of the range of danger. The inequality between urban and rural dwellers, together with capitalist penetration of the agrarian sector and the traditional elites' monopolisation of most large revenue sources, led to the establishment of peasant movements who fought for change or opposed the system. And since the existence of Israel is a danger that threatens the Arab nation, the diversion of the Jordan waters by it multiplies the dangers to Arab existence. [17] In an international context, the revolution took place because the state boundaries established by France were artificial and the hostility within the newly established Syria to the creation of Israel. [30], Pressure from consistent pro-Nasser demonstrations in northern Syria and Damascus and from pro-union Ba'athist leaders like Jamal al-Atassi, the Nasserists and the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), coupled with the weakness of the Ba'athists at the popular level in Syria, led to unification efforts between the new government and the governments of Egypt and Iraq. Mughniyeh was in the know about the most top-secret missions of Hezbollahs patrons, Iran and Syria. Control of water resources and Israeli military attacks against the diversion effort are considered among the factors which led to the Six-Day War in June 1967. The disagreement between them was a meeting between a certified lightweight who had never approved any real operational planning (Olmert) and a professional who had engaged in that for decades, from the days of Sayeret Matkal (the elite commando force Barak had led), and up through the weekly discussions on operations and incursions in the defense ministers and the chief of staffs offices (Barak). Everything happens within a few seconds. There is a brief moment when you feel excellent, because you have achieved what was required and then you are very vigilant. The plebeian character of the struggle and the radical ideologies spawned radical solutions to the agrarian problem. In the Israeli defense establishment, the concern was that if the diplomatic channel were employed, Assad was liable to position anti-aircraft batteries near the reactor or even to establish something like a kindergarten there as a human shield. The prime minister was also afraid of a leak to the media by American officials who opposed an Israeli attack. Had it not been for his carelessness and the Mossads brilliant work, it is doubtful that the operation to destroy the reactor would have taken place. Syrian Nuclear Reactor Strike: Battle of the Memoirs, U.S. intelligence's presentation about the Syrian nuclear reactor. According to what had agreed upon in advance, there was no communication between the planes: We maintained complete silence during the flight. In 2005, Col. (today reserve brigadier general) Eli Ben Meir had taken up the position of head of the technology field in the research branch. The reactor's core and its cooling system. It was the prime minister at that time, Menachem Begin, who established the doctrine whereby Israel will not allow any of its foes in the Middle East to develop nuclear weapons. The next morning I assembled my people and I said we had experienced two total failures here: Wed had absolutely no idea that such a program even existed and, second, we didnt know that negotiations to dismantle it had been going on for eight months. The external imposition of arbitrary state boundaries on Syria with no corresponding popular acceptance led to discontent. Eight planes would be allocated to the mission four F-15I "Raam" (Thunder) and four F-16I "Sufa" (Storm) carrying 16 tonnes of bombs. For combat pilots to hear a thing like that it is completely contrary to their intuition and ethos.. By the time Olmert left office less than two years later, Israel had again according to the foreign press heavily bombed an Iranian convoy in the heart of Sudan that was en route to Gaza. US bases in north-east Syria have come under attack before, with the US responding with air strikes. It was then 2:00 A.M. on Wednesday. That was no simple matter, a year after Lebanon., An existential threat to the State of Israel arose here and we dealt with it, the way the air force had dealt with the reactor in Iraq in the past, says Col. Amir, the F-15 pilot who took part in the attack. There is no in-between. However, that day the military intelligence raided the apartment where the plotters were planning to assemble. WebThe US bombed Syria on Friday, April 13, 2018, in retaliation for the Assad regimes use of chemical weapons. The first indication of the Syrian regimes interest in purchasing nuclear research facilities came to the notice of Israel and the Western countries in the late 1990s, toward the end of the elder Assads rule. The Mossad intelligence division distributed a document with an assessment to that effect in February 2004. Capt Davis stressed that the US had taken "extraordinary measures" to avoid civilian casualties and that planners "took precautions to minimise risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield". In his memoirs, Bush wrote that following Haydens assessment, he told Olmert at their meeting on June 19 that he could not justify an American attack on a sovereign state. Ashkenazi showed up together with many of the generals, in part so as not to arouse suspicion that something was afoot. Olmert stayed in his office to work. Yet in 2008, IAEA inspectors found traces of radioactive substances there, and the agency said there was a high probability that a nuclear reactor had been in operation at the site. Syria. The new defense minister believed that before any attack on the reactor, the IDF had to be 98 percent prepared, not 80 percent., With the approach of summer, temperatures inside the conference rooms also rose. Bidens bombing of Iraq and Syria: the normalization of war. The extremist organization has not held territory in Syria since 2019, but it continues to represent a threat with sleeper cells, mostly hiding in Syrias expansive desert. It was in fact his comments that pushed the IDF to present alternative plans, one of which was ultimately the one that was carried out. I cant remember him ever hugging me on any other occasion but this time he was all smiles. He looked at me I knew that from that moment on nothing would be the same. Following the 1948 ArabIsraeli War, the 1949 Armistice Agreements created three demilitarized zones on the Israel-Syria border. People realized that there was something bigger here. Between June and September, the operational planning became more detailed, additional precise information about the destination came in, different methods of action were assembled and finally the crews were slotted into the operation. Olmert had to take into account a reaction that was liable to include direct hits on civilian and military infrastructures, from northern Israel to the Tel Aviv area. Shallal is situated nearby to Kur Udani and Ranhebas. The opposition-run health directorate says at least 84 people died. We set out around 10:30 P.M., recalls Amir. There is a bit of excitement before the bomb hits. Picture taken from a U.S. intelligence presentation. The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. Video, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, MasterChef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo dies, Trevelyan relative 'would consider' famine payment, Four dead after suspected pigeon racer dispute, Ding becomes China's first male world chess champion, UK chip giant Arm files for blockbuster share sale, Adidas sued by investors over Kanye West deal, US principal visits David sculpture after nudity row. It occurred to me that we could wake up the next morning and the horizon would be full of [incoming] missiles. Cheney, as usual the rapacious hawk, wanted the United States to attack and destroy the reactor as a public and deterrent message, a warning against the development of additional secret nuclear programs in other countries. DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) Two bombs attached to a bus carrying Syrian troops exploded in Damascus during the [c], At the beginning, there were no signs of the quarrels that would destroy the military committee. The conflict in Syria is often referred to as a civil war, meaning a conflict between citizens of the same country. Authorize the operation.. He succeeded in persuading Bush to halt the diplomatic move and to commit to preventing leaks. Half a year later, the commander of the shadow army was attending a banquet at his holiday home in the Syrian seaside town of Latakia when he was shot by snipers from a boat. The planners came to the conclusion that an Israeli attack had to leave the Syrian president inside the denial space. If the attack avoided embarrassing and humiliating Assad publicly, there was a reasonable chance he would decide to hold back and not respond by going to war. USS Shamal (PC-13) is the thirteenth Cyclone -class patrol ship. The dilemma Israel faced with respect to the choice between effectiveness and secrecy did not end with the question of the operation itself. By no stretch of the imagination will you come back without the reactor having been destroyed. But it was aimed at this particular airfield for a reason, because we could trace this murderous attack back to that facility.". According to Sufrin, The Koreans and the Syrians built a camouflage structure on top of the reactor that made it look like a factory from the outside. It was decided to attack but to authorize a small forum the trio of Olmert, Barak and Livni to decide upon the timing of the attack and the nature of the operation. May I suggest they appoint a liaison officer to communicate their views to us? We started to back-analyze the Libyan program and try to figure out where else in the region similar programs could be hiding.. When Assad's forces reached the outskirts of the base, it was broad daylight. On July 13, Bush informed Olmert in a conversation over the direct and secure red phone line between the White House and the Prime Ministers Office in Jerusalem that he opposed a military attack on the reactor. Al-Hariri led a brigade from the Syrian front towards Israel, while Ba'athists were able to gain control of a second brigade stationed in Suwayda. Barak tried to block approval of the operation and Olmert read out arguments from a piece of paper like a lawyer arguing in court, for the record. Webfacility destroyed. WebThe 1963 Syrian coup d'tat, referred to by the Syrian government as the 8 March Revolution ( Arabic: ), was the successful seizure of power in Syria by the Meir Dagan was very determined. This is the story of a single night more than a decade ago, and a daring, hair-raising operation executed by the Israeli air force, army and intelligence community that destroyed an atomic plant in northeastern Syria. Several branches had not followed orders and had not dissolved during the UAR years. [7] The same elite that had governed Syria during the mandate continued in power, and they ruled in the same manner. On August 31, Olmert and Barak held a limited operational consultation with the heads of the defense organizations. [45], The failure of Alwan's revolt marked the end of significant Nasserist influence in Syria's military and civilian institutions, and with the pro-Nasser forces largely defeated, the Military Committee became the sole power center of the country. In the air force it was decided to brief only the top command in each of the two operational squadrons about the nature of the target that was to be attacked. In April 2007 the Winograd commission published its devastating interim report on the conduct of the war, in which it was very critical of Olmerts functioning the previous year. The bottom 80 percent received the remainder. In the air force, they characterized the release of the fuel tank into Turkey as an operational error, although tactically it was possible to have justified the crews considerations. Its only rarely that a Mossad chief calls and says: I have to see you. The Mossad chief arrives and sits in my office. Covering about 10 sq km (4 sq miles), it has two 3km-long (2 mile) runways, as well as dozens of hangars, buildings and storage facilities. They were concerned about the possibility of a blunder that could develop from mistaken intelligence information, as had happened to the Americans in the affair of the weapons of mass destruction (that were not found) on the eve of the Iraq War in 2003. The prevailing conspiracy theory held that Barak was waiting for the final version of the Winograd commission investigative report on the second Lebanon war, which was to be published within a few months, in the expectation that the commission would obligate Olmert to resign. We had hundreds of miles to fly, some of them in an area full of missiles. The tension is liable to lead to an unplanned deterioration in the situation, and in order to prepare for that possibility the IDF must increase its level of readiness. [19], In 1962, the military committee of the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party spent most of its time planning to take power through a conventional military coup. Olmert, a few of the ministers and some of the army officers who clearly favored the prime minister, suspected Barak of being driven by hidden personal motives. To hear opinions from individuals beyond the heads of the military and the intelligence communities, Olmert consulted (as did then-Defense Minister Amir Peretz, separately) other experienced people and external oversight teams. The military committee did not look favourably on the civilian leadership led by Michel Aflaq, objecting to his dissolution of the Ba'ath Party during the UAR years. At 8 P.M. he summoned leader of the opposition Netanyahu to the prime ministers residence. Some 59 cruise missiles were Web8 Sep 2022 Israels bombing of Syrias Aleppo International Airport on Tuesday was the second time it had been attacked in less than a week. Because hes got the worlds biggest balls.. The 20-page document was distributed to top defense officials. According to the report, Ibrahim Othman, head of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission, had come to Austria to participate in the deliberations of the International Atomic Energy Agency. [13] While the Ba'ath Party was strong, its decision to recruit members from across society led to tribalism and clientelism within the party. Any report in the media was liable to awaken the Syrians out of their complacency, alter their defensive preparedness around the reactor and deny the IDF the advantage of surprise. The United Nations security council majority (excepting the USSR) voted for the resumption of work by Israel. The leader of Islamic State and one of the worlds most wanted men has been killed during an overnight raid in Syria by US special forces.. We had a number of kinds of weapons, a mix that wouldnt leave you with a single malfunction point without the ability to compensate for it. Their mission this time was not to take down enemy aircraft. [27] Another policy was to staff positions in the armed forces with Alawite relatives and friends close to the members of Military Committee. On December 19, 2003, a Saturday morning, I turned on the radio and heard on a news broadcast that the Americans and the British had persuaded Libya to dismantle its nuclear program, says Amnon Sufrin, who was then head of the intelligence division at the Mossad. Its a very long flight, secret, on a dark night and a low altitude of 100 meters above sea level. The Syrian regime completed the destruction of the building. The detailed intelligence helped convince those countries of the justice of the Israeli move and neutralized the possibility that the attack would become the cause of an international scandal. We were over the target for two or three minutes. Gates and some of Bushs advisers believed that an attack should be left in Israels hands. He announced his defection to opposition forces in a video aired by Al Arabiya TV on 25 December 2012. The advisers, as well as a number of ministers, first and foremost Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, were for the most part summoned individually for personal meetings with the prime minister at his residence, where they were informed about details of the affair, mostly by Yadlin and Dagan. The material was analyzed on a Wednesday night, recalls Amnon Sufrin. Top Israeli officials, most of them intelligence people, set out for Western countries and a number of friendly countries in the region to share the incriminating information about the secret Syrian reactor. [15] The establishment and the dissolution of the UAR was a catastrophe for the Ba'ath Party as it divided among those who supported the UAR, those who opposed it and those who opposed or supported the traditional leaders of the party. The Syrian nuclear reactor, before the Israeli strike. [18], The growth of the new middle class in Syria fueled discontent since the traditional elite dominated the agrarian sector the largest sector of the economy and created most of the wealth.