SyriaIsraeli jets destroy Hezbollah-bound advanced Russian missiles stored near Latakia

Published 28 January 2014

Large warehouses near the port city of Latakia, where the Assad regime stored advanced Russian missiles before shipping them to Hezbollah, were destroyed by aerial attack late Sunday. Israel has already launched six attacks in 2013 on Syrian arms shipments to Hezbollah — on 30 January, 3 May, 5 May, 5 July, 18 October, and 30 October. The attack on 5 July was on storage facilities in the same Latakia area, where Syria kept a large quantity of advanced P-800 Oniks anti-ship missiles, also called Yakhont missiles. Three weeks after the attack, U.S. sources said that the attack did not succeed in wiping out all of the missiles. “American officials said that further Israeli strikes are likely,” the New York Times reported on 31 July.

Large warehouses near the port city of Latakia, used to store advanced Russian missiles, were destroyed by aerial attack late Sunday. The method of the attack – missiles being launched from planes in a stand-off position some distance away – and the type of warehoused missiles destroyed in the attack led analysts to the conclusion that it was yet another action taken by Israel to prevent the Assad regime from transferring sophisticated arms to Hezbollah.

Israel has already launched six attacks in 2013 on Syrian arms shipments to Hezbollah — on 30 January, 3 May, 5 May, 5 July, 18 October, and 30 October. The weapons destroyed in these earlier attacks were P-800 Oniks anti-ship missiles, also called Yakhont missiles; SA-17 surface-to-air missiles; and Iranian mobile Fateh-110 medium-range surface-to-surface missiles.

The Telegraph reports that official Israeli government and military sources declined to comment on the attack.

General (Ret.) Amos Yadlin, former IDF intelligence chief and now a respected military analyst, said yesterday that such airstrike would be in keeping with Israeli policy to intercept the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah or to Syria.

Israel has declared four weapons system as a red line: advanced air defenses, advanced and accurate ballistic missiles, surface-to-sea advanced missiles like Yakhont, and chemical weapons.

In each case where Israel has intelligence that these are moving from Syria to Lebanon, or arriving to Syria from Iran or Russia, it seems — if the sources are right - that Israel is acting upon this,” he told the Telegraph.

Residents of Latakia reported hearing a series of loud explosions shortly after midnight the night between Sunday and Monday, explosions which were accompanied by Israeli planes heard breaking the sound barrier.

Residents in south and east Lebanon also reported activity by Israeli planes in the skies over the Bekaa valley.

Professor Uzi Rabi, a Middle East expert at Tel Aviv University, told the Telegraph Israel was “obligated to take action” if the Assad regime or Hezbollah obtained missiles like the S-300, which posed a threat to Israeli warplanes flying over Syria or Lebanon.

The Israel Air Force, on 5 July 2013, attacked several warehouses in the same area in an effort to destroy a large shipment of Hezbollah-bound Yakhont anti-ship missiles, but the New York Times, a week later, quoted U.S. sources to say that that attack did not succeed in wiping out all of the missiles.

“American officials said… that further Israeli strikes are likely,” the Times reported.