Theoptimisticconservative's Blog
Several websites have picked up on a UPI report that the Israeli Air Force attacked a chemical weapons site
in the Damascus area on Saturday. The report is unconfirmed by any
official source, but it is credible. There are caveats, however.
The site in question, if it was struck, was probably the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), long known to be a key facility in Assad’s chemical and biological weapons program. (See here as well.)
“Mossomo” at Flopping Aces put together an excellent timeline
back in February on the events leading up to a previous unconfirmed
report that the IAF had struck the SSRC. This strike was reportedly
conducted on 30 January 2013. Hours later, Israel targeted a truck convoy west of Damascus which was carrying sophisticated new surface-to-air missiles for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
I
doubt the convoy’s cargo itself was related to the chemical weapons
site; if Israel went after both targets in January, it was because they
were close, geographically, and Israeli military authorities wanted to
maximize the gain from a rare and dangerous penetration of Syrian air
space.
But
it’s not actually clear that the SSRC was hit at the end of January.
David Barnett at Long War Journal was among many who picked up a few
days afterward on satellite imagery shown by Israel’s Channel 2, which
seemed to show the SSRC completely unscathed, after
the date of the reported attack. Barnett concluded that the IAF
probably meant to attack only the truck convoy, which was in a parking
lot close to the SSRC at the time of the strike.
If
the IAF actually attacked the SSRC on 28 April, the urgency of hitting
it may relate to the battle being waged in its vicinity at this very
moment. According to the Lebanese Daily Star, Assad’s forces are engaged in an all-out assault to retake the area around the compound
from the rebels. Fighting in the immediate vicinity of the SSRC
increases the danger that its inventory will fall into rebel hands – and
thence into the hands of Islamist jihadists, including Hezbollah,
Hamas, and al Qaeda.
It’s
also possible that Israel attacked something near the SSRC on Saturday,
but not the SSRC itself. One factor arguing for that assessment is
that attacking the SSRC would be a big job. There’s a lot of industrial
square footage to thump; the IAF would want to put more than a couple
of strike fighters over the target. Ideally, there would be sequential
strikes; I would envision two strike-fighter pairs delivering an initial
ordnance package, followed by another wave of pairs an hour later
delivering a second one. Additional restrikes could well be necessary –
if, that is, the objective is to “k-kill” the installation, or destroy
it completely so that it could not be reconstituted within a timeframe
useful to the current civil war.
If
that’s not the objective, it’s hard to think of one that would justify
putting IAF aircraft in Syrian air space in order to strike the SSRC. Either you go in to take it out for the duration of the civil war, or you don’t hit it at all.
So perhaps the IAF visits have been for other purposes, and the SSRC hasn’t
been hit. Assad’s forces hold the compound itself, and they may well
be using it to marshal other kinds of military equipment, which, like
the truck convoy in January, can from time to time present a lucrative
target for the IAF.
It’s
hard to say, without any idea of how big the reported attack was on
Saturday. If the Israelis did attack the SSRC, however, it’s a good bet
that they did whatever was necessary to achieve a useful effect. In
our brave new world, someone will put out satellite imagery in a few
days, and then we’ll have a better idea.
J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at Hot Air, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Daily Caller, The Jewish Press, and The Weekly Standard online. She also writes for the new blog Liberty Unyielding.
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