WebAluf Benn. The differences of opinion between Olmert and Barak on the matter of the reactor became evident relatively quickly. They are the best in the world. There was silence. The squadrons to which the mission was assigned were brought into the picture during the month of June, and only in a limited way. [6] The Syrian pro-opposition website, Orient News, meanwhile said the jet's pilot had been identified as the commander of an Su-22 squadron at Shayrat. After the coup, the Ba'athist Military committee initiated a series of purges that altered the structure of the Syrian armed forces; by replacing 90% of its officer corps with Alawites. It is far from any settlement. [2], Small scale water-related skirmishes had occurred following the 1949 agreements. 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. 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 Ahmad Suwaydani, one of the new members of the Military Committee, was appointed Head of Military Intelligence and Mazyad Hunaydi became Head of the Military Police. Amos Yadlin. After mulling everything over, and at the advice of former Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Olmert decided to share the sensitive new information about Syria with the Americans. And that is after the missiles we had absorbed in the Lebanon War and even before we had an interception system like Iron Dome. Barak, shouting, argued that he had not authorized the presentation. We had hundreds of miles to fly, some of them in an area full of missiles. An analysis of the operational possibilities for destroying the reactor, gradually led Israel to a realization that would ultimately guide the decision on the method of action that would be used. [8] The failure in the 1948 ArabIsraeli War led to the downfall of the traditional elite and the rise of the military in politics. However, the Military Committee, which had expanded its membership with five new members[note 1], ensured that the Ba'athists controlled the real levers of powers. WebShayrat airbase was the target of the US' first deliberate direct attack on Syrian forces since the start of the war six years ago. With high certainty, one of the two types would reach the target.. Until then MI had been focusing on the more accepted channel of countries working their way toward a nuclear project an installation for enriching uranium, based on centrifuges. The odds were low but they did exist. Syria In the meantime, final preparations were under way in the air force. While no group immediately claimed responsibility for The war and the investigations revealed hugs gaps in the armys capabilities and the readiness of its units. When the material taken from the computer was received in Israel, it was found to include about 35 photographs from inside the mysterious building in the Syrian desert. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, two days after the Israeli atrike. It had never happened that they came to an Israeli prime minister and told him: Very close to your home something is being built that could destroy the state. Eight planes would be allocated to the mission four F-15I "Raam" (Thunder) and four F-16I "Sufa" (Storm) carrying 16 tonnes of bombs. Shallal is situated nearby to Kur Udani and Ranhebas. Rescue workers said many children were among those killed or injured in the suspected chemical attack in Idlib. Moreover, this time careful attention was paid to the procedures of the discussions and decision-making, for the neglect of which Olmert was severely chastised in the interim report. The new chief of staff initiated a process of rehabilitation but when he was shown the findings from Othmans computer, Ashkenazi realized that he was facing a series of problems completely different from what he had been preparing for: how to get rid of the new threat in a way that would not spark a new war with Syria and Hezbollah and if a war did break out how to ensure that the IDF would win this time. 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 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. Shkedi, a man of profound historical awareness, went up to Olmert at the end of the meeting and said to him: Mr. Mr Trump's National Security Adviser, H R McMaster, said measures had also been put in place to avoid hitting what were believed to be stores of Sarin at Shayrat, so that it "would not be ignited and cause a hazard to civilians or anyone else". According to David Makovsky, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in addition to eight attack planes, a number of other aircraft also took part in the operation. Israel fires missiles on border positions inside Syria Party leaders then opted to overlook democratic norms and procedures. 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. According to various reports at the time, Mughniyehs friend General Suleiman had no kinder a fate. On 9 March the NCRC released Lu'ay al-Atassi from jail, promoted him to the rank of lieutenant general, appointed him commander-in-chief and NCRC chairman, the de facto head of state. There is a brief moment when you feel excellent, because you have achieved what was required and then you are very vigilant. In the force they were worried about a series of possible complications during the attack, ranging from the presence of a concealed battery of anti-aircraft guns in the area of the reactor to the concern that it was not possible to determine with certainty that the reactor would be destroyed in a single sortie, so that a second one, immediately following the first, might be needed to complete the mission, this time under more complicated circumstances, in which the aim of the operation had already been revealed to the Syrians. Russia launches pre-dawn missile attack on Ukraine, Chaos at port as thousands rush to leave Sudan. Though the relations between Olmert and Barak were fairly good, and it appeared that Olmert wanted Barak in Defense, Barak had voiced some harsh criticism of the prime ministers conduct during the war in Lebanon. 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. Othmans negligence turned out to be the worst security offense in the history of Syria. Satellite imagery obtained by Stratfor that December showed construction work to improve the airbase. The US bombing of Syria, explained in 400 words - Vox The weather along the way surprised us in a number of places. [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. We had to figure out an answer on the spot. However we, under his orders, did not let go of it for a long time.. [33][note 2] The purges resulted in the culmination of neo-Ba'athist transformation of Syrian military, which became mostly stripped of Sunni officers and packed with loyalist Alawite officers. The first involved many planes and could have ensured swift and very nearly certain destruction of the reactor, but it would leave behind a large footprint and was liable to spur the Syrians to a harsh response. As in Mughniyehs case, Israel was accused of the killing but Jerusalem never officially responded. Mughniyeh was in the know about the most top-secret missions of Hezbollahs patrons, Iran and Syria. The Syrian nuclear reactor, before the Israeli strike. 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. The prime minister warned the American president that setting the diplomatic channel in motion would make it possible for the Syrians to play for time in the talks while hastening the completion of the construction of the reactor. 14 people died in a military bus blast, the deadliest attack in - NPR State media initially described the Damascus attack as a roadside bombing. 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. 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. However, you must avoid aerial dogfights with enemy planes. Following that, one of the F-16s was supposed to broadcast the word Arizona on long-range radio back to Tel Aviv to indicate that the target had been bombed according to plan. The Arab Ba'ath Movement was established by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar in the 1940s, others who played a notable role in the early stages of the Ba'athist movement were Zaki al-Arsuzi, Wahib al-Ghanim and Jallal al-Sayyid. 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. Since the attack in Syria we have also improved wonderfully in intelligence, in our range of action, in our ability to attack secretly., During the course of the past decade, the two operational air force squadrons have fiercely guarded the secret of the attack. The PM hoped that the U.S. would take it upon itself to destroy the reactor. The two spoke, at Olmerts request, on a secure line. 1963 Syrian coup d'tat - Wikipedia (res.) So why was it chosen? At times, Barak told someone, he had the feeling that Olmert was playing the role of a leader based on what he had seen in American movies. Capt Davis said they targeted "aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defence systems, and radars", describing them as "things that made the airfield operate". Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. He was a far more formidable opponent than al-Kudsi, and the Iraqi Regional Branch managed to take power through an alliance not only with military officers, but also with segments of the middle class. [28], Umran was first given the command of the 5th Brigade in Homs, but was promoted in June to become commander of the 70th Armoured Brigade. [6], The mandate was dissolved in 1946 because of a British ultimatum to France, and Syria became an independent country on 17 April 1946. A Syrian military statement did not give details about the Historians in the future who will examine the minutes of those discussions wont know what to do with this dissonance., In contrast, however, another senior officer says: Had a war with Syria indeed broken out following the bombing and had the IDF been caught unprepared again, Barak was liable to have finished like Moshe Dayan after the Yom Kippur War. Shallal Shallal is a village in Shallal is situated close to the villages El Mazyunat Khaddzh Khasan and Jubb as Safa. Defense Minister Amir Peretz briefed his American counterpart Robert Gates, who was in Israel on a routine visit. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? 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 The trick was not to take responsibility and immediately after the bombing to push ahead with a diplomatic effort that would convince other countries of the reliability of the information about what the Syrians were preparing and spur them to act to restrain him., Two different air force strike options were on the table, the difference between them was the size of the aerial force that would be used. Web23 Feb 2022. A quiet and relatively clandestine action would probably be perceived in Syria less emotionally but in such a case, there would be no certainty that the nuclear threat had been eradicated. It was an extraordinary process, at the end of which the reactor was destroyed., Ido Nechushtan believes that this is the kind of problem that its important for Israel to know how to solve on its own. 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. That evening, the wedding of the chief of staffs secretary, Liron, went ahead as planned. By the 1950s the party had managed to acquire an urban middle-class base. A major escalation took place in 1964 when Israel declared it would regard the Diversion Project as an infringement on its sovereign rights. Assad was given the task of reporting to other units that the coup had been postponed to 8 March. She is familiar with this.. In a series of cabinet meetings, the hostility between the prime minister and his defense minister became more extreme. 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. 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. 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. [26] Captain Salim Hatum, a party officer, seized the radio station. Many of the people involved in the action deserve to get credit and also demand it, said one person who played a key role in planning the operation. The tank landed on the Turkish side of the Syrian-Turkish border, creating two problems: First, the incident, and the photos of the tank with Hebrew writing on it, were evidence that an Israeli force had been in the area. In contrast to the Iraqi regional branch, the Syrian regional branch did not have mass support or a significant support base in the middle class. After the attack, Ashkenazi sent MI chief Yadlin to the Turkish chief of staff to explain the considerations and circumstances and to reassure him that there had been absolutely no violation of Turkish sovereignty during the operation. He is usually a pretty reserved person. [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. Syria The "War over Water", also the Battle over Water, was a series of confrontations between Israel and its Arab neighbors from November 1964 to May 1967 over control of water sources in the Jordan River drainage basin. The US says it conducted two rounds of air strikes in eastern Syria in one day against groups affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC). Instead, he returned to Syria via a flight to Beirut on 23 June to protest the Committee's move against him. We started to back-analyze the Libyan program and try to figure out where else in the region similar programs could be hiding.. A similar possibility regarding Syria was also considered during those years at the research branch of Military Intelligence. According to most observers, including Johnston himself, the Arab non-adoption of the plan was not total rejection. 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. 02/15/2022. Summary. Syria When the F-16I crew reported Arizona, it was 12:25 A.M., Israel time, on Friday, September 6. The Syrian branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was able to recruit youth from radical peasant movements and thus was able to mobilise large sectors of the population. Prime Minister, trust the air force pilots. [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. Everyone there is jumping up and down in excitement, like in a Hollywood movie. Concurrently, the preparations began in the IDF for the possibility of things going sour, but in order to maintain the secrecy of the operation, it was necessary to tailor a false narrative for most of the commanders, and later also for the public and the media. Gates was pretty much in shock. The prime ministers two close advisers, Yoram Turbovich and Shalom Turgeman, flew to Washington to brief top administration people. Immediately after the attack, Israel embarked on a diplomatic blitz that had been prepared in advance by the Prime Ministers Bureau, the Mossad, MI and the Foreign Ministry. AP Photo/Hassan Ammar. Dagan asked: Mr. WebThe US bombed Syria on Friday, April 13, 2018, in retaliation for the Assad regimes use of chemical weapons. We made certain five times that it was all systems go., Even today, he remembers the moment of impact. Syrian artillery units opened fire on the construction site. The coup was planned by the military committee, rather than the Ba'ath Party's civilian leadership, but Michel Aflaq, the leader of the party, consented to the conspiracy. We were over the target for two or three minutes. In some public opinion polls, the level of support for the premier didnt rise above the single digits. The revolution was led by an anti-oligarchical alliance of a radicalised lower middle class, strategic members of the officer corps, marginalised minorities and a significant number of peasants who were mobilised for agrarian conflict. Y. reached the conclusion that they were looking in the wrong place. Olmert consulted, individually, three of the previous prime ministers: Shimon Peres (who a few months later was elected president of Israel), leader of the opposition Benjamin Netanyahu and citizen Ehud Barak. However the British, who had helped establish the state after World War I, made a secret agreement (Sykes-Picot Agreement) with France and established the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. In the pictures, the inside of the reactor is visible, and in it are fusion cylinders and bars and also some Korean workers. Both al-Kudsi and al-Hawrani were easily tracked down and arrested. F-15 pilot talks about striking the Syrian nuclear reactor. The latter's anti-UAR government had also been overthrown by pro-UAR officers in 1963. 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". Attacking a hot reactor was liable to create tremendous environmental pollution. Is climate change killing Australian wine? Syrian Civil War | Facts & Timeline | Britannica [18], In Syria, religious minorities were often underprivileged, and a specific ethnicity usually belonged to a specific social class. WebUSS Shamal. And before that, at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009, came the Israeli military operation known as Cast Lead against Hamas in Gaza. The disagreement here is not between those who want a war and those who oppose it. If we fail, you can disown us. But the flight to the target was relatively calm, without our getting discovered and without any direct threat. Accordingly, the Arab states have to prepare the plans necessary for dealing with the political, economic and social aspects, so that if necessary results are not achieved, collective Arab military preparations, when they are not completed, will constitute the ultimate practical means for the final liquidation of Israel.[5]. 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. [1] The coup was met by indifference in the population at large. The Syrian military said the strike had left six personnel and a number of others injured, and caused "huge material damage". WebShelling and a rocket attack killed at least nine people and wounded dozens of others in Al-Bab, Aleppo Governorate, Feb. 2. That was marked as a point of no return, because an attack on a hot reactor was liable to cause tremendous environmental damage. It isnt there any more.. Syria. DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) Two bombs attached to a bus carrying Syrian troops exploded in Damascus during the On the way back, in order to reduce weight and save fuel, one of the planes jettisoned an empty fuel container. [7]. I dont know what was going through his conspiratorial mind, but Baraks view was correct in my opinion: Leave no stone unturned before you make such a fateful move.. [1] The issue of water sharing from the JordanYarmuk system turned out to be a major problem between Israel, Syria and Jordan. The United Nations security council majority (excepting the USSR) voted for the resumption of work by Israel. The Syrian reactor, before and after the Israeli strike. WebAbdulaziz al-Shalal (Redirected from Abdulaziz Al-Shalal) Major General Abdulaziz al-Shalal ( Arabic: ) was chief of the Syrian military police. The group was successful, and they promised al-Hariri that "If we succeed, you can become chief of staff. Why Now? [43] They were released exactly a year later and exiled,[44] after lobbying by Nasser and Iraqi President Abdul Salam Arif. An extensive process of preparation got underway in the IDF. The national struggle was shaped by ideologies such as Arab nationalism, pan-Islamism and Greater Syrianism. Some of its planes had been ordered to bomb rebel positions. One of the key figures who led to the decision to bomb the Syrian reactor, the head of the Mossad at the time, Meir Dagan, died in March last year. The greatest challenge, relates Col. [37][38] Al-Hariri was ordered to take a direct flight to the Syrian embassy in the United States, where he was reassigned as the embassy's military attache. The process, say many, was very organized, strictly by the book and a paragon of order by Israeli standards. Peres, who as leader of the opposition at the time of the bombing of the reactor in Iraq had expressed reservations about that attack as well, surprised Olmert with the suggestion that Israel should attempt to talk with the Syrians first. Syria Amir says he never told his wife about that night in eastern Syria. The politicians were waiting in suspense for the final report, which was due to be published in January 2008. 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. When the IAEA wanted to visit the site, following reports of the attack and leaked allegations that it had actually been a nuclear reactor, the Syrians claimed there was nothing to see because there had been nothing there. Russia is reported to have used Shayrat as a base for its Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships, The US said these were the paths of the Syrian Air Force jets that bombed Khan Sheikhoun, The Russian defence ministry claimed that only 23 Tomahawk missiles reached Shayrat, This photograph taken after the missile strike appears to show a damaged hangar at Shayrat, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. Dagans weekly meeting with the prime minister in Tel Aviv was scheduled for 8 A.M. the next day. A lot of people told him that it wasnt possible that there was a reactor, and that it would be a pity to waste the resources and the time. He had been killed in 2008 in Damascus while leaving a reception at the Iranian embassy. Fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and Iranian-backed Iraqi militias supporting the Syrian army on the ground are also believed to have used Shayrat. This is very serious.. Read about our approach to external linking. Nechushtan, the head of the Planning Directorate, has said that according to the scenario the planning and intelligence directorates had drawn up, We were going to take Assad by surprise. It was a square building with an area of about 1,600 square meters (more than 17,200 square feet), which was 20 meters (close to 66 feet) high. This system remained unchanged until the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR). Therefore, the findings from the reactor were presented as findings at a low level of certainty. In Israel they were surprised by that conclusion. The military committee's alliance with the Nasserists led to the establishment of secret contact with Colonel Rashid al-Qutayni, the head of the military intelligence, and Colonel Muhammad al-Sufi, the commander of the Homs Brigade. Bombing of Shallal | Historica Wiki | Fandom All the intelligence people who knew Bashar told me: Its not like Bashar. As the months went by, the suspicion grew that beneath the broad roof of the building hid President Bashar Assads secret flagship project: a nuclear reactor produced in North Korea, intended to provide the younger Assad with the achievement that had eluded his father, Hafez Assad, on the battlefield and between wars and to lead toward a point of strategic balance that could cancel out Israels clear military and technological advantage. 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. Syria Because hes got the worlds biggest balls.. The executions were a rare punitive action used to deal with the participants of a failed coup in Syria, with the typical punishment being exile, imprisonment or reassignment to a foreign diplomatic post. On Tuesday, September 4, the air force conducted its last mock maneuver in advance of the attack. [26], Assad led a small group of conspirators to capture the al-Dumayr air base, 40 kilometers (25mi) north-east of Damascus the only unit that resisted the coup. Baraks behavior, says one of the top defense people, was simply deplorable, Especially taking into account the disagreement about bombing the nuclear sites in Iran, which erupted two years later. I see on the thermal system I have on the plane and also outside the bombs are hitting the structure. 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 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. Michael Hayden, the head of the CIA, wrote years later in The Washington Post that he told Bush that his agency had concluded that the site at Al Kibar was part of a nuclear weapons program and there was no other explanation for its existence. In mid-June the former prime minister won the primary for Labor Party leadership, replacing Peretz in that position, and he announced that he himself would be the new defense minister. Rubble was scattered around the building and the place looked fairly neglected, perhaps intentionally so.