By Howard Altman
Israel raid
Israel destroyed a secretive missile production facility in northwest Syria last week in an attack that included inserting special operations forces by helicopter to retrieve equipment and documents, media outlets are reporting. The new details shed light on an attack initially described as only an airstrike. Not only did the raid strike at the heart of the Iranian military presence in Syria, but it also sent a clear message to Tehran that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) can and will attack deep underground complexes with ground troops that it otherwise cannot destroy from the air.
The raid, which took place September 9, “obliterated” the facility, located in northwestern Syria near the Lebanese border, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed American and other Western officials. “A number of people” were killed at the site, those sources said. It is located about 140 miles north of Israel.
According to the Times, independent experts, Israeli officials, and the U.S. government have described the SSRC’s site in Masyaf “as a center of weapons research and development, aided by the country’s ally Iran. Chemical, biological and potentially nuclear weapons are developed there, as are missiles used by Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed militia group in Lebanon that is fighting Israel.”
The operation was carried out by the Israeli Air Force’s elite Shaldag special operations unit, according to Axios.
“The Israeli special unit surprised the Syrian guards at the facility and killed several of them during the raid, but no Iranians or Hezbollah militants were hurt,” Axios reported, citing anonymous sources. “The special forces used explosives they brought with them in order to blow up the underground facility, including sophisticated machinery, from inside, two sources said.”
An above-ground view of the facility that was attacked and destroyed by Israeli commandos. (Google Earth)
Since 2017, Israeli airstrikes have targeted facilities at Masyaf multiple times. Between 2018 and 2022, an S-300 surface-to-air missile system Russia ostensibly gifted to the Syrian government helped guard the site.
“The Iranians began building the underground facility [at Masyaf] in coordination with Hezbollah and Syria in 2018 after a series of Israeli airstrikes destroyed most of the Iranian missile production infrastructure in Syria,” according to Axios’ report today.
The decision “to build an underground factory deep inside a mountain in Masyaf [was] because it would be impenetrable to Israeli air strikes,” Axios wrote. “The sources claimed the Iranian plan was to produce the precision missiles in this protected facility near the border with Lebanon so that the delivery process to Hezbollah in Lebanon could take place quickly and with less risk of Israeli airstrikes.”
The Israeli raid on the missile production facility took place 140 miles north of its border. (Google Earth image)
The new subterranean facility was discovered by Israeli intelligence and monitored for the past five years under the code name “Deep Layer,” according to Axios. “The Israelis realized they would not be able to destroy the facility with an airstrike and would need a ground operation,” one of the sources told the publication.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com
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