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Israel admits air attack on
Syria
Al
Jazeera.net
Wednesday October 03, 2007
Israel has confirmed that its air force carried out an air
raid inside Syrian territory in September - after remaining silent
on the issue for nearly a month.
Israel said on Tuesday that its warplanes had conducted the attack
deep inside Syrian territory on September 6, saying it attacked
a "military target".
Israeli radio reported: "The military censor has authorised
for the first time the publication of the fact that Israeli combat
planes attacked a military target deep inside Syrian territory
on September 6."
Until now, Israel has refused to confirm or deny that any air
attack had taken place, though the incident was publicly confirmed
by Syrian and Western officials.
David Chater, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Jerusalem, said: "The
[Israeli] military censors had no other option but to admit the
attack took place because the Syrian president yesterday went
on record to say the Israelis had indeed attacked a target in
northern Syria - what he described as an unused military base."
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"No other details about the scale of the mission,
the intent or what intelligence it was based on have been released,"
he said.
Israeli military censors continue to withhold details, but Damascus
says
at least four Israeli warplanes crossed into Syria in the incident.
Syria says its air defence systems confronted Israeli aircraft,
which subsequently bombed an area inside the country.
Media speculation
With the Israeli blackout on information in place, most of the
speculation on the raid has come from foreign media.
Some US officials have linked the raid to suspicions of secret
nuclear co-operation between Damascus and North Korea.
A North Korean ship was reported as docking in Syria a few days
before the attack happened.
"Press speculation - in the foreign press, not in the Israeli
press - has said perhaps there was nuclear technology imported
from North Korea," Chater said.
"This kind of speculation is bound to increase now."
Both Damascus and North Korea have denied any nuclear ties, with
Syria accusing Israel of spreading what it describes as false
reports as an excuse for war.
Faruq al-Shara, the Syrian vice-president, said on Saturday that
the raid was meant to provide justification for future aggression
against his country.
"Those who continue to talk about this raid and to invent
inaccurate details are aiming to justify a future aggression [against
Syria]," he said at a press conference.
Some earlier reports had suggested that the raid may have targeted
Iranian arms bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Syria has filed a formal complaint with the UN over the air raid,
which has raised tensions between the two countries which are
still formally at war.
Peace talks between the two powers collapsed in 2000 over the
scope of an Israeli pull-out from the Golan Heights, which Israel
captured from Syria in 1967.
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