Tukey Pleads For Help With Refugees

By Kevin Sullivan
The Washington Post

YAYLADAGI, Turkey — Facing one of the world’s largest refugee crises in decades, Turkish officials are urgently appealing for international financial assistance and calling on wealthy nations, particularly the United States and the countries of Europe, to start accepting large numbers of Syrian refugees.

The stance marks a shift for the Turkish government, which had long insisted that Ankara would manage and pay for the refu­gee crisis on its own as a matter of national pride. But with the cost to Turkey hitting $1.5 billion, an estimated 400,000 refugees in the country and a total of 1 million expected by the end of the year, pressure is building. Turkey is even willing to organize an airlift, Ankara officials said, but no country seems eager to receive the refugees.

Photo: Syrian refugees in Iskenderun, Turkey, are processed for departure to Egypt. An estimated 400,000 Syrian refugees are in Turkey, and a total of 1 million are expected by the end of the year. The crisis has cost the Ankara government nearly $1.5 billion.  Photo: Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

“The international community should not only provide assistance to foot the bill, but they need to step up and open their countries to these refugees,” said Levent Gumrukcu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman. “They have utterly failed the test of providing an effective response.”

The civil war in Syria and its spillover across the region are expected to dominate President Obama’s White House meeting Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep ­Tayyip Erdogan.

Washington has provided $44 million for humanitarian organizations helping Syrian refugees in Turkey, as part of a total of $510 million in aid for Syrians affected by the war.  State Department officials said that they had received no formal request from Turkey or the United Nations to accept Syrian refugees but that they were “ready to consider” such a request. At this point, they said, most refugees would still probably prefer to wait for a chance to return home than be airlifted to a distant land.

But those in Turkey’s refu­gee camps see few prospects of going home soon.

Samia Faido ran from her Syrian village two years ago, seven months pregnant and terrified, just before the government bulldozed her home and torched her family’s apple and olives trees.

Now she and her husband have a Turkish-born toddler, their four older kids are learning Turkish, and they have settled into a life that is starting to feel alarmingly permanent.

“When I first came here, I thought I was going to be here for maybe a month,” said Faido, 30, sitting in her cheerfully decorated tent, within sight of the dry hills of her homeland. “Every night I go to sleep hoping that we will wake up to good news in Syria, but it’s always just more bombing and shelling.”

She and her family were among the first group of 252 refugees who arrived at the border seeking shelter in April 2011. Now they live in two adjacent white tents on the shady grounds of a former tobacco factory that has been transformed into a camp community of nearly 3,000 people.

The Faidos’ camp is less than a mile from the Syrian border, and armed officers stand at the gate, guarding against anti-refugee violence. Tall metal walls topped with coils of razor wire surround the place.

Still, life here feels settled, and measured by the rhythms of any small town: births and deaths, weddings and funerals, prayer and play.

Pretty, peach-colored buildings dot the grounds, serving as dormitories for refugees and communal toilet and shower facilities. Children play soccer in courtyards, older men play backgammon, and peacocks wander here and there in the shade of tall pine trees.

It has all the trappings of municipal life: schools, health clinics and mosques; electricity supply for every tent; and a system of local government to settle disputes. Periodic episodes of violence have taken place in some of the Turkish camps, but refugees mostly have settled into a peaceful, if monotonous, routine.

A fast-growing crisis

About half the Syrian refugees in Turkey live outside camps, often in crowded and miserable conditions. More than 700 people live in a wedding hall in the once-quiet border town of Reyhanli, and thousands are crammed into warehouses and rented apartments in towns all along the border.

Public fears about the refu­gee crisis deepened when a car bombing last weekend killed more than 50 people in Reyhanli. The motive for the attack is not known, but the Turkish government blamed it on forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Some critics complain that the 17 refu­gee camps across the country are becoming de facto Turkish towns. Government officials rejected that, saying that all the Syrian refugees will have to leave eventually.

But with the war in Syria showing no sign of ending, and ­anti-refugee sentiment among Turks on the rise, officials here concede that many of the 400,000 refugees now in the country could be living in Turkey for years.

Panos Moumtzis, the U.N. refugee agency’s regional coordinator for Syria, said the United Nations has no plans for a Syrian airlift. But, he added, the crisis is growing so fast — with about 3.5 million refugees expected across the region by the end of the year — that officials might have to reevaluate all options.

Kelly Clements, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, said that neither Turkey nor the United Nations had formally asked the United States to take Syrian refugees.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell, noting that the United States has the world’s largest refugee resettlement program, said, “We are ready to consider any Syrian refugee for U.S. resettlement” who is referred by the United Nations.

But Lavinia Limon, chief executive of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, said the cost and logistics — including security screening for every refu­gee, which can take a year or longer — make it nearly impossible to imagine that the United States could take enough refugees to “make a dent” in the problem.

“If I were advising the Obama administration, I would tell them, ‘You’d be crazy to be even thinking about this,’ and I’m a refu­gee advocate,” said Limon, who helped coordinate the 1999 Kosovo airlift, the last time there was a major airlift of refugees, as an official in the Clinton administration.

Monotonous camp life

In their camp, Faido and her husband, Ghassan, have tried to re-create the life of their Syrian farmhouse. Brightly colored plastic matting covers the floor, where the children — four girls and a boy, all under 11 — have learned to set their juice cups carefully so they don’t tip over on the uneven ground.

The tents are about 10 feet square, big enough to walk around comfortably, with two tiny refrigerators, a small electric oven and a gas-powered stove top, and almost everyone has a television hooked to a satellite dish.

Faido said the surreal nature of life in a camp is always close by. She said that when she takes Tala, her 22-month-old, into the town outside the camp gates, the toddler is terrified by cars — because there are none in the camp.

Faido said the Turks have been generous hosts. The children’s school building is spotlessly clean and smells of fresh paint. The Turkish government and the U.N. World Food Program provide the family about $53 a month in spending money.

The government paid for Mediya, the Faidos’ 11-year-old daughter, to take a 10-day school trip to the Turkish seaside city of Izmir. The girl said that the last time she saw the sea was a week before the family fled their village; she was taken there by an uncle who Faido said was later killed by the Assad regime.

Ghassan Faido said that he struggles against boredom and that he misses his old life as a farmer. By Turkish law, the refugees are not allowed to work, but he said he met a man who hires him once in a while to help tend his olive trees. Now Faido mainly passes the days at home, at the camp mosque or talking to other men who also have lost everything.

Lately they have been mourning eight friends who arrived with them at the camp two years ago. A few months ago, the friends decided they couldn’t take the monotony of camp life anymore, so they went back to Syria. Faido said word recently reached camp that all of them were killed in a May 2 massacre by pro-government forces in the seaside village of Baida.

“I try not to think a lot about staying here,” he said. “I keep thinking that this has to end soon. But this could take a very long time.”

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Will Syria Lash Out At Israel in Retaliation for Weekend Air Strikes, Perhaps Through Third Party Like Hamas?

By   Avi Issacharoff   
The Tower Magazine

Two mortar shells struck Israel’s Golan Heights on Monday in the early evening local time. Though the IDF described the mortars as accidental spillover from fighting across the border in Syria, they are bound to deepen fears of escalating violence in the region.

On Friday and Sunday Israel reportedly struck Iranian and Hezbollah assets based in Syria. The Israelis have subsequently made extensive efforts to dampen tensions – IAF jets had conducted the air strikes from Lebanese air space, staying out of Syria – but nonetheless Damascus has been signaling that it may escalate the situation.

Most pointedly, Syrian state TV announced today that President Bashar al-Assad was activating Palestinian groups to retaliate against Israel.

Al-Ikhbariya announced that the government had given a green light to Palestinian groups to conduct “operations” against Israeli targets on the Golan Heights. Hezbollah-linked media, meanwhile, reported that Lebanon and Syria had established “popular committees” ready to fight Israel in the region.

United Nations “Blue Helmets” continue to monitor the Golan Heights

The Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al Rai, quoting sources close to Assad, reported that the Syrian leader had used Russian backchannels to tell the Israelis that Damascus would react if Israel struck Syria again. Syria, they said, would consider any such act a declaration of war and would contemplate firing surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles at Israel.

Syrian sources told a range of media outlets that Damascus had deployed missile batteries aimed at Israel that could respond to any further Israeli actions.

Errant mortars and other projectiles from Syria have fallen on the Golan Heights a number of times over the two-year Syrian civil war. After Monday’s incident Israel filed a complaint against the UN observer force monitoring the two countries’ border.

Israeli troops were filmed operating on the Golan today:

http://www.thetower.org/exclusive-assad-green-lights-palestinian
-operations-against-israel-on-the-golan-heights-threatens-missile-attacks-syrian-tv/

New York Times Says Obama’s Stated “Red Line” For Syrian Chemical Weapons Was “Unscripted” Ad Lib; White House Denies Claim

Announcing a ”red line” and then not enforcing consequences hurts America’s credibility, Obama’s Presidency

Did President Barack Obama really shock senior aides in August 2012 when he warned Syria publicly that using chemical weapons would cross a “red line”? No, the White House said Monday, rejecting a New York Times report.

“The president’s use of the term ‘red line’ was deliberate and was based on U.S. policy,” press secretary Jay Carney told reporters at his daily briefing.

By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News | The Ticket

President Barack Obama answering a question about Syria during a news conference in Costa Rica on May 3. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Carney also dismissed claims from a U.N. investigator that Syria’s rebels, not President Bashar Assad’s forces, used chemical weapons. “We find it incredible, not credible, that the opposition has used chemical weapons,” he said. “We think that any use of chemical weapons in Syria is almost certain to have been done by the Assad regime.”

His comments came after The New York Times, citing anonymous Obama advisers, had reported Saturday that the president’s warning was “unscripted,” and “went further than many aides realized he would.” It also noted that advisers felt “surprise” and “wondered where the ‘red line’ came from.” The daily cited one aide as saying that “Mr. Obama was thinking of a chemical attack that would cause mass fatalities, not relatively small-scale episodes like those now being investigated, except the ‘nuance got completely dropped.’”

The Times report came with Obama under heavy fire for drawing a “red line”—Syrian strongman Assad’s use of chemical weapons against rebels fighting to oust him—but seemingly not responding now that the U.S. intelligence community has concluded that the regime has likely done so.

“What the president made clear is that it was a red line, and that it was unacceptable, and that it would change his calculus,” Carney said. “What he never did—and it is simplistic to do so—is to say that ‘if X happens, Y will happen.’ He has never said what reaction he would take.”

Some Republicans have charged that that’s precisely the problem, that drawing a “red line” without specific consequences dents America’s credibility.

Obama is “looking at a range of options, and he is not removing any option from the table” if it is conclusively proven that Assad’s regime used chemical weapons, Carney said.

The press secretary also defended Israel’s weekend air strikes in Syrian territory, saying, “It is certainly within their right to take action to protect themselves.” Israel reportedly struck arms depots amid concerns that Syria would try to ship some high-tech weapons to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon who might use them to strike that U.S. ally.

Asked whether the violence in Syria, estimated to have claimed the lives at at least 70,000 people, amounted to genocide, Carney declined to use the term, saying that would be up to the United Nations and relevant courts.

Teleprompter obscures U.S. President Barack Obama as he speaks during a campaign event at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio August 21, 2012. Mr. Obama was on a two-day campaign trip to Ohio, Nevada and New York.  After the president made his “you didn’t build that” remark, his handlers kept him glued to the teleprompter. Off the teleprompter, President Obama often does damage to his presidency. The truth comes out. He says what he’s thinking. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Israel Causes “Fear in The Lion’s Den,” Syria Vows to Retaliate for Fiery Attack in Damascus

Rubble was cleared in an area near Damascus. The Syrian government said the attack “opened the door to all possibilities.”  Photo: SANA, via European Pressphoto Agency

By Anne Narnard
The New York Times

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syrian government publicly condemned Israel for a powerful air assault on military targets near Damascus early Sunday, saying it “opened the door to all possibilities,” as fear spread throughout the region that the country’s civil war could expand beyond its borders.

The attack, which sent brightly lighted columns of smoke and ash high into the night sky above the Syrian capital, struck several critical military facilities in some of the country’s most tightly secured and strategic areas, killing dozens of elite troops stationed near the presidential palace, a high-ranking Syrian military official said in an interview.

Israel refused to confirm the attacks, the second in three days, and Israeli analysts said it was unlikely that Israel was seeking to intervene in the Syrian conflict. They said the attacks in all likelihood expanded and continued Israel’s campaign to prevent the Syrian government from transferring weapons to Hezbollah, the Shiite militia and political party in neighboring Lebanon that is one of Israel’s most dangerous foes.

Rebels, opposition activists and residents said the strikes hit bases of the elite Republican Guard and storehouses of long-range missiles, in addition to a military research center that American officials have called the country’s main chemical weapons facility.

An American official said a more limited strike early Friday at Damascus International Airport was also meant to destroy weapons being sent from Iran to Hezbollah.

Concerns flared about whether Hezbollah might attack Israel in retaliation, possibly drawing Lebanon into the conflict. Israel deployed two of its Iron Dome missile-defense batteries in its northern cities. Iran’s IRNA news agency said Israel could expect a “crushing” retaliation from Syria or “the resistance,” meaning Hezbollah.

Analysts said Syria, weakened by the conflict, and Hezbollah, overstretched as it commits more forces to support the Syrian government, were unlikely to act, but they cautioned that a miscalculation by either side that set off an escalation could not be ruled out. And President Bashar al-Assad could choose to mount covert attacks on Israeli targets abroad, rather than engage its military directly.

One senior Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he did not think that Israel was entering a war with Syria and suggested that Syria was unlikely to respond. Mr. Assad “has his own problems,” the official noted. “He doesn’t need Israel in the mess.”

In Washington, the reported Israeli attacks stoked debate about whether American-led airstrikes were the logical next step to cripple the ability of the Syrian president to counter the rebel forces or use chemical weapons. That was already being discussed in secret by the United States, Britain and France in the days leading to the Israeli strikes, according to American and foreign officials involved in the discussions, with a model being the opening days of the attacks on Libya that ultimately drove Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from power.

Lawmakers from both parties urged President Obama to move toward arming the rebels. “The idea of getting weapons in — if we know the right people to get them — my guess is we will give them to them,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The White House declined to say whether it believed Israel was responsible for the Damascus explosions, though other American officials said there was no plausible alternative, given the size and precision of the strikes. Josh Earnest, the deputy press secretary, echoed statements by Mr. Obama last week, saying “the Israelis are justifiably concerned about the threat posed by Hezbollah obtaining these advanced weapon systems.”

The Syrian deputy foreign minister, speaking on CNN, called the strikes “an act of war.” But the decision to blame Israel so publicly presented Mr. Assad with a difficult choice. He could retaliate against Israel and risk conflict with the region’s strongest military — an option analysts called unlikely. Or he could refrain, in which case he risks appearing further weakened and hypocritical to supporters and opponents alike, many of whom are united in their antipathy for Israel.

“Why does the regime attack the rebels with Scuds and warplanes while it takes no action on the Israeli raids?” Basil, 35, who lives near the military research center, in Jamraya, asked as he and his wife swept broken glass from their house on Monday.

Noureddin, 50, a lawyer, lives in the Doumar Project neighborhood, where the blasts knocked kitchen crockery from shelves and drove residents into basements for shelter. Noureddin said the attack would anger members of Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect, who make up the bulk of the military elite and his strongest base of support, already frustrated with their mounting death toll.

“Today, President Bashar al-Assad is in a very hard position with his Alawite community,” he said. In a play on Mr. Assad’s surname, which means lion in Arabic, he added, “Today, Israel kills the Alawite soldiers who are protecting the lion’s den.”

The airstrikes shocked residents of Damascus, a relative bubble of security, literally shaking some out of bed. It was a display of firepower far greater than any seen near the capital in two years of war.

At the military’s Tishreen Hospital on Monday, a doctor said that there were at least 100 dead soldiers and many dozens more wounded.

While much of the region debated the military and political impact, Damascus felt like a city on high alert.

Hassan Husseini, 41, said that at 4 a.m., two hours after the blasts, he drove a friend home from his house in Malki, at the foot of Mount Qasioun, where in safer times Mr. Assad lived in an apartment with his family. Mr. Husseini said he was still reeling from the blasts: “The walls were moving, and the ground was trembling under us.”

Soldiers at the city’s ubiquitous checkpoints inspected his car unusually carefully, he said.

“There was tension,” he said. “You could sense the alertness in the houses and among people; everybody was awake.”

Mr. Husseini saw people clustered at windows and on balconies. “Some lights were on,” he said, “but even when they were off I saw them moving behind windows like ghosts.”

The military impact, though, was less clear.

Within hours, the rebel Damascus Military Council declared that it would try to capitalize. The council issued a statement calling on all fighters in the area to work together, put aside rivalries and mount focused attacks on government forces.

But Louay Mekdad, a spokesman for the Supreme Military Council, considered Washington’s best option for a military ally among the rebels, said the strike by itself would not present an opportunity to tip the balance.

The elite Republican Guard units that the Syrian official said had been hit are currently believed to have little involvement in the fighting against Syria’s rebels, though they are a last-resort line of defense.

“Does this erode the regime’s long-term capability? Undoubtedly,” said Emile Hokayem, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “Does this create a short-term opportunity for the opposition? It’s doubtful.”

The Syrian military official said he believed that Israel and the rebels had collaborated in a plan for opposition forces to advance after the strikes hit elite forces in one of the few areas on the outskirts of Damascus where rebels have made few inroads. But Israeli analysts suggested that any deaths of Republican Guards, who were guarding weapons stockpiles, were probably incidental.

Some analysts said Israel may have been sending a message to its main rival, Iran, that despite recent gains by Mr. Assad’s forces, the alliance between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah has waning power to check Israeli action.

Syrian state television said the explosions confirmed what the government has been contending all along: that the rebels are part of an American-Israeli conspiracy to target Mr. Assad for his support of Palestinians and opposition to Western policies in the Middle East.

But a longstanding refrain among fighters and activists has been that Mr. Assad’s anti-Israel stance was a sham. They say that while the government’s security forces and military failed to prevent the Israeli strikes — and for that matter have not clashed with Israel since 1973 — they have killed tens of thousands of Syrians and jailed many more to hold on to power.

Some rebels and activists say they consider Mr. Assad a far higher-priority target than Israel, though they still oppose it. The main exile Syrian opposition coalition walked that line carefully in a statement issued after the bombings, blaming the government for allowing attacks by “external occupying forces.”

Also, as the conflict takes on an increasingly sectarian cast, some rebel fighters say that for the Sunni-dominated rebellion, the greatest enemy is not Israel but Shiite-dominated Iran and Hezbollah, as well as the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiism.

Mr. Mekdad of the Supreme Military Council said that the opposition had only one target: Mr. Assad’s government.

“The Assad regime has never focused on fighting the Israeli Army; it’s focus has only been on oppressing the Syrian people,” he said. “From the start our goal has been to topple the regime, and we will continue.”

Reporting was contributed by an employee of The New York Times from Damascus, Syria, Hala Droubi from Dubai, Thomas Erdbrink from Tehran, Ben Hubbard from Cairo, Michael Schwirtz from New York and Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut.

Israel Strikes Syria, Says Targeting Hezbollah Arms; Syria Calls Strikes “Declaration of War”

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A cloud of smoke is seen in the sky after an explosion at what Syrian state television reported was a military research centre in Damascus, in this still image taken from video obtained from a social media website by Reuters on May 5, 2013.  Photo Credit: Reuters/Social Media/Handout via Reuters TV

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Israel says it targets arms from Iran now in Syria and now bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon

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By Dominic Evans and Oliver Holmes

Sun May 5, 2013 11:16am EDT

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Israeli jets bombed Syria on Sunday, rocking Damascus for hours and sending pillars of flame into the night sky in what a Western source called a new strike on Iranian missiles bound for Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Local people reported massive explosions and internet video showed the capital’s skyline lit by flashes; Syrian opponents of President Bashar al-Assad rejoiced at Israel’s third raid this year, and second in 48 hours, while anger in Tehran highlighted how Syria’s civil war risks spinning further beyond its borders.

Israel, while declining to confirm the strike, stressed its focus was to deny its Lebanese foes new Iranian firepower and not take sides between Assad, long seen as a toothless adversary, and rebels who have won sympathy from Israel’s Western allies but who also include al Qaeda Islamists hostile to the Jewish state.

It appears to calculate that Assad will not risk forces he needs to fight the rebels by attacking a much stronger Israel.

Syrian state television said the bombing around a military research facility at Jamraya caused “many civilian casualties and widespread damage” and quoted a letter from the foreign minister to the United Nations saying: “The blatant Israeli aggression has the aim to provide direct military support to the terrorist groups after they failed to control territory.”

People living near the Jamraya base spoke of explosions over several hours in various places near Damascus, including a town housing senior officials: “Night turned into day,” one man told Reuters from his home near Jamraya, also struck on January 30.

CNN quoted Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mekdad calling Sunday’s attack a “declaration of war”, and the Iranian foreign minister urged countries to resist Israel. But a senior Iranian commander also said Syria was strong enough to defend itself without Tehran’s help – though he also offered training.

ROCKETS TARGETED

A confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel hoped that by not confirming its attack, it would not force its enemies into serious retaliation. There was little response from Hezbollah, Syria or Iran to an earlier attack on the Jamraya compound, near the Lebanese border, on January 30.

After an Israeli strike on Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama defended Israel’s right to defend itself from Hezbollah, which fired many rockets into Israel during a war in 2006.

A Western intelligence source told Reuters: “In last night’s attack, as in the previous one, what was attacked were stores of Fateh-110 missiles that were in transit from Iran to Hezbollah.”

Hezbollah in Lebanon declined immediate comment. Iran denied that the attack was on armaments bound for Lebanon.

Israel has long sought to block Hezbollah’s land, sea and air transport from Iran and frets such new missiles could give the Shi’ite militants, who share in Lebanon’s government, the ability to strike its Tel Aviv conurbation with some accuracy.

Netanyahu’s colleague, Tzachi Hanegbi, noted Obama’s reluctant to heed calls for U.S. military backing for the rebels despite Assad’s forces alleged use of poison gas.

Given the confusion among world powers, he added, Israel was only trying to protect its own interests and saw little to be gained by trying to influence the outcome of Syria’s civil war.

The sky is lit up after an explosion at what Syrian state television reported was a military research centre in Damascus, in this still image taken from video obtained from a social media website by Reuters on May 5, 2013. REUTERS/Social Media/Handout via Reuters TV

“The world is helplessly looking at events in Syria,” he told Army Radio. “That is why, as in the past, we are left with our own interests, protecting them with determination – and without getting too involved.”

It was unclear whether Israel sought U.S. approval for the action; in the past, officials have indicated that Israel sees a need only to inform Washington once such a mission is under way.

Netanyahu and Obama have had a fraught relationship in past years, as Washington seeks to hold Israel back from any attack on Iran’s nuclear program while diplomatic moves continue.

At a routine public appearance on Sunday, Netanyahu made no direct reference to the strikes in Syria but spoke pointedly of his responsibility to ensure Israel’s future.

He maintained a plan to fly to China later in the day, suggesting he did not expect a major escalation. However, a military source said the army had deployed more anti-missile defense systems near the northern borders in recent days.

NIGHT OF EXPLOSIONS

Video footage uploaded onto the Internet by Syrian activists showed a series of blasts. One lit up the skyline of Damascus, while another sent up a tower of flames and secondary blasts.

Syrian state news agency SANA said Israeli aircraft struck in three places: northeast of Jamraya; the town of Maysaloun on the Lebanese border; and the nearby Dimas air base.

“The sky was red all night. We didn’t sleep a single second. The explosions started after midnight and continued through the night,” one man told Reuters from Hameh, close to Jamraya.

“There were explosions on all sides of my house,” he added, saying people hid in basements during the events. In the center of Damascus, people at first thought there was an earthquake.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television aired footage showing a flattened building spread over the size of a soocer field, with smoke rising from rubble containing shell fragments. It did not identify where the film was shot.

The streets of central Damascus were almost empty of pedestrians and traffic on Sunday morning, the start of the working week. Checkpoints that have protected the area from rebel attack appeared to have been reinforced.

Some opposition activists said they were glad strikes may weaken Assad, even if few Syrians have any liking for Israel.

“We don’t care who did it,” said Rania al-Midania in Damascus. “We care that those weapons are no longer there to kill us.”

But in Israel, Netanyahu ally Hanegbi spoke of relative indifference in its attitude to the rebels and Assad, who had maintained a standoff with Israel that dated from the time of his father, who led Syria in its last war with its neighbor in 1973: “We have no interest because we have no ability to assess what is good for us regarding the future regime,” Hanegbi said.

Netanyahu appeared at the dedication of a highway junction in memory of his late father. He made no reference to raids but said his father “taught me that the greatest responsibility we have is to ensure Israel’s security and guarantee its future”.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Marwan Makdesi in Damascus, Maayan Lubell, Dan Williams, Jeffrey Heller and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem and Arshad Mohammed and Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Will Waterman)

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A view shows part of Mount Qassioun and part of Damascus city, in this photo taken from the Syrian cabinet building May 5, 2013. REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri

Israel Targeted Iranian Missiles in “Limited Intervention” Syria Attack

The missile shipment struck by Israel was reported to include Iranian-made Fateh-110’s, a type of mobile, accurate, solid-fueled missile, like this one in a military parade in Tehran in 2010.  Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Anne Bernard, Michael R. Gordon and Jodi Rudoren
The New York Times

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A series of powerful explosions rocked the outskirts of Damascus early Sunday morning, which Syrian state television said was the result of Israeli missile attacks on a Syrian military installation.

If true, it would be the second Israeli airstrike in Syria in two days and the third this year.

The airstrike that Israeli warplanes carried out in Syria overnight on Thursday was directed at a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles from Iran that Israel believed was intended for Hezbollah, American officials said Saturday. That strike was aimed at disrupting the arms pipeline that runs from Syria to Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese organization, and it highlighted the mounting stakes for Hezbollah and Israel as Syria becomes more chaotic.

Iran and Hezbollah have both backed President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war, now in its third year. But as fighting in Syria escalates, they also have a powerful interest in expediting the delivery of advanced weapons to Hezbollah in case Mr. Assad loses his grip on power and Syria ceases to be an effective channel for funneling weapons from Iran.

The missiles that were the target of the Israeli raid had been shipped from Iran and were being stored in a warehouse at Damascus International Airport when they were struck, according to an American official.

Iran has sought to use the threat of a Hezbollah missile attack against Israeli territory as a means of building up its ally and deterring Israel from conducting airstrikes on Iranian nuclear installations that Israeli and American officials believe are part of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

In Lebanon, some analysts said they believed that a strong Hezbollah could also emerge as a powerful ally for Mr. Assad if he is forced to abandon Damascus, the Syrian capital, and take refuge in a rump Iranian-backed state on the Syrian coast, a region that abuts the Hezbollah-controlled northern Bekaa Valley.

“The relationship between Hezbollah and the Assad regime is stronger now,” said Talal Atrissi, a professor at Lebanese University in Beirut who has good relations with Hezbollah. If Mr. Assad falls, Hezbollah knows the axis of Syria, Hezbollah and Iran will be greatly weakened, he said.

Israel, for its part, has repeatedly cautioned that it will not allow Hezbollah to receive “game changing” weapons that could threaten the Israeli heartland even if a new Syrian government takes power.

As the Obama administration considers how to dissuade Mr. Assad from ordering a chemical weapons attack — the use of such weapons, the White House has said, would cross a “red line” — Israel, by striking the warehouse, is clearly showing that it is prepared to stand behind the red lines it has set.

“The Israelis are saying, ‘O.K., whichever way the civil war is going, we are going to keep our red lines, which are different from Obama’s,’ ” said Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

On Friday, SANA, the official Syrian news agency, reported an attack on the Damascus airport by Syrian rebels firing rockets at an aircraft and fuel dump — an account that American officials say may have been intended to obscure the fact that the target was a warehouse full of missiles.

An American official, who asked not to be identified because he was discussing intelligence reports, said the targeted shipment consisted of Iranian-made Fateh-110s — a mobile, accurate, solid-fueled missile that has the range to strike Tel Aviv and much of Israel from southern Lebanon, and that represents a considerable improvement over the liquid-fueled Scud missile. Two prominent Israeli defense analysts said the shipment included Scud Ds, a missile that Syrians have developed from Russian weapons with a range of up to 422 miles — long enough to reach Eilat, in southernmost Israel, from Lebanon.

Syrian forces loyal to Mr. Assad have used Fateh-110 missiles against the Syrian opposition. Some American officials are unsure whether the new shipment was intended for use by Hezbollah or by the Assad government, which is believed to be running low on missiles in its bloody civil war. But one American official said the warehouse that was struck in the Israeli attack overnight Thursday was believed to be under the control of operatives from Hezbollah and Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force.

Hezbollah is now believed to have more missiles and fighters than it had before its 2006 battle with Israel, when Hezbollah missiles forced a third of Israel’s population into shelters and hit as far south as Haifa. A Pentagon official said in 2010 that Hezbollah’s arsenal was believed to include a small number of Fateh-110s, and additional shipments would add to Hezbollah’s striking power.

In carrying out the raid overnight Thursday, Israeli warplanes fired air-to-ground weapons, apparently staying clear of Syrian airspace and operating in the skies over neighboring Lebanon.

A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined to acknowledge the attack, saying only in a statement, “Israel is determined to prevent the transfer of chemical weapons or other game-changing weaponry by the Syrian regime to terrorists, especially to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

In late January, Israel carried out a similar airstrike in Syria, which it also refused to publicly confirm, that used similar tactics, including a route over Lebanon, according to a former senior American official. The January attack was against a convoy carrying SA-17 antiaircraft weapons, which were supplied by Russia. The transfer of those weapons to Hezbollah would jeopardize the Israeli Air Force’s ability to operate over Lebanon.

SA-17 antiaircraft weapons

On Sunday, the Syrian government said that the Israelis had launched a missile attack against the military complex at Jamraya just outside Damascus overnight.

Large blasts sent towering plumes of flame and smoke into the night sky above Qasioun Mountain, which towers over downtown Damascus, according to residents and videos posted by opposition activists. The videos showed multiple explosions over a period of several minutes, suggesting that more than one target may have been hit.

The mountain is home to an array of Syrian military facilities, including military research centers, and is the source of much of the government shelling of rebel positions in the suburbs. Residents and activists said the explosions struck the mountain headquarters of the army’s Fourth Division, the elite and feared unit run by the president’s brother Maher, as well as al-Hamah, where the command of the Republican Guard, one of the government’s elite forces, is located.

Ikhbariya television, a state-owned channel, asserted that Israeli had carried out the strikes. “The new Israeli attack is an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups which have been tottering after facing strikes by our noble army,” the station said.The government has long said that the uprising against it was fueled by foreign-backed “terrorists” and served Israeli and American interests.

Israeli officials had no comment on the explosions. Nor did American officials, who signaled that the United States did not carry out the attack.       

“They are definitely going after military facilities on or around Qasioun,” said Andrew J. Tabler, an expert on Syria as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “There are a lot of research and military facilities there that are tied into the command and control structure of the regime.”

“It is unprecedented and something all of Damascus can see,” he added, stressing that it would likely have an important political impact in Syria.   

The Jamraya complex, the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, is Syria’s main research center for work on biological and chemical weapons, American officials have said, raising questions about whether the motivation for the attack went beyond stopping the flow of arms to Hezbollah. The Israeli raid in January was in the same area and the complex suffered moderate damage in that attack.

Israel’s official silence reveals the broader dilemma it faces in how to handle Syria’s upheaval. After 40 years of quiet on its northeastern border, Israel is now deeply worried about violence spilling over into its territory and about a post-Assad Syria being a vast, ungoverned area controlled by Islamist or jihadist groups, with no central authority to control militant activity.   

But leaders in Jerusalem believe that they have few options beyond the targeted airstrikes, seeing greater military intervention as likely to backfire by uniting anti-Israel forces.

President Obama, who is traveling in Central America, said  Israel was entitled to defend itself from its enemies.

“The Israelis, justifiably, have to guard against the transfer of advanced weaponry to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah,” he told the Spanish-language TV station Telemundo.

Few experts expect the Israeli airstrike to put an end to Iran’s attempts to ship arms to Syria and its Hezbollah ally. Jonathan Spyer, an expert on Syria and Hezbollah at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, predicted more attempts to transfer weapons — and Israeli efforts to stop them.

“Clearly Hezbollah is hoping to benefit from its engagement in Syria, and clearly Israel is committed to preventing that,” said Mr. Spyer, who noted that Israel was taking a “calculated risk” that its limited intervention would provoke only a limited response, if any.

Certainly, nothing in recent comments by Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, suggested that his organization would pull back from its support of Mr. Assad or its alliance with Iran.

Days before the Israeli strike, Mr. Nasrallah issued some of his strongest statements yet of support for Mr. Assad, edging closer to confirming what the Obama administration has already reported: that Hezbollah is backing him militarily, not merely tolerating border crossings by some of its members to defend Lebanese citizens in Syria, as Hezbollah has officially maintained.

Mr. Nasrallah said Hezbollah — using the word “we” — would not allow Syria to fall to an armed assault that he said was backed by the United States and Israel, and added that the party was defending civilians of all sects in Qusayr, a city in Homs Province near the Lebanese border, where rebels say Hezbollah has led recent battles against them.

Anne Barnard reported from Beirut, Lebanon; Michael R. Gordon reported from Washington; and Jodi Rudoren from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger from Washington, and an employee of The New York Times from Damascus, Syria.

Israel Bombs in Syria: Second Attack in 3 Days

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In this image taken from video obtained from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, smoke and fire fill the the skyline over Damascus, Syria, early Sunday, May 5, 2013 after an Israeli airstrike. Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said. The attack, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel’s involvement in Syria’s bloody civil war. Syria’s state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research center near the Syrian capital and caused casualties. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video)

By BASSEM MROUE and IAN DEITCH | Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said.

The attack, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel’s involvement in Syria’s bloody civil war. Syrian state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research center near Damascus and caused casualties.

An intelligence official in the Middle East, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to disclose information about a secret military operation to the media, confirmed that Israel launched an airstrike in the Syrian capital early Sunday but did not give more precise details about the location. The target was Fateh-110 missiles, which have precision guidance systems with better aim than anything Hezbollah is known to have in its arsenal, the official told The Associated Press.

The airstrikes come as Washington considers how to respond to indications that the Syrian regime may have used chemical weapons in its civil war. President Barack Obama has described the use of such weapons as a “red line,” and the administration is weighing its options — including possible military action.

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Iran, a close ally of the Assad regime, condemned the airstrikes but gave no other hints of a possible stronger response from Tehran.

Israel has said it wants to stay out of the Syrian war, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated the Jewish state would be prepared to take military action to prevent sophisticated weapons from flowing from Syria to Hezbollah or other extremist groups.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war in mid-2006 that ended in a stalemate.

Syria’s state news agency SANA reported that explosions went off at the Jamraya military and scientific research center near Damascus and said “initial reports point to these explosions being a result of Israeli missiles.” SANA said there were casualties but did not give a number.

Damascus-based activist Maath al-Shami said the strikes occurred around 3 a.m. “Damascus shook. The explosion was very, very strong,” said al-Shami adding that one of the attacks occurred near the capital’s Qasioun mountain that overlooks Damascus.

He said the raid near Qasioun targeted a military position for the elite Republican Guards that is in charge of protecting Damascus, President Bashar Assad’s seat of power.

Mohammed Saeed, another activist who lives in the Damascus suburb of Douma, said “the explosions were so strong that earth shook under us.” He said the smell of the fire caused by the air raid near Qasioun could be felt miles away.

There has been no official statement from the Syrian military.

The strikes put the Assad regime in a tricky position. If it fails to respond, it looks weak and leaves itself open to such airstrikes becoming a common occurrence. But if it retaliates militarily against Israel, it risks dragging the Jewish state and its powerful military into a broader conflict.

After the airstrikes overnight, Israel’s military on Saturday deployed two batteries of its Iron Dome rocket defense system to the country’s north. It described the move as part of “ongoing situational assessments.”

The Iron Dome protects against short-range rockets. Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets at Israel during the 2006 war, while Israeli warplanes destroyed large areas of south Lebanon.

Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel’s military intelligence, said the strike is a signal to Syria’s ally, Tehran, that Israel is serious about the red lines it has set.

“Syria is a very important part in the front that Iran has built. Iran is testing Israel and the U.S. determination in the facing of red lines and what it sees is in clarifies to it that at least some of the players, when they define red lines and they are crossed, take it seriously,” he told Army Radio.

In Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast condemned an Israeli airstrike against Syria and urged countries in the region to remain united against Israel, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency. The brief statement gave no details.

The Fateh-110, or Conqueror, is a short-range ballistic missile developed by Iran and first put into service in 2002. The Islamic Republic unveiled an upgraded version in 2012 that improved the weapon’s accuracy and increased its range to 300 kilometers (185 miles).

Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said at the time that the solid-fueled missile could strike with pin-point precision, making it the most accurate weapon of its kind in Iran’s arsenal.

An airstrike in January also targeted weapons apparently bound for Hezbollah, Israeli and U.S. officials have said. The White House had no immediate comment on Sunday’s reported missile strikes.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, also reported large explosions in the area of Jamraya, a military and scientific research facility northwest of Damascus, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV said the research center in Jamraya was not hit. It added that an army supply center was targeted by the strike. It quoted unnamed Syrian security officials as saying that three sites including military barracks, arms depots and air defense center were targeted by the strike.

The station aired footage of what it said was a facility in Jamraya that was hit in the airstrike. It showed a heavily damaged building as well as what appeared to be a chicken farm with some chickens pecking around in debris scattered with dead birds.

The raid appeared to have taken place next to a major road that was filled with debris, and shell casings were strewn on the ground. A blue street sign on the side of the road referred to the direction of the Lebanon border and the Syrian town of Zabadani near the frontier.

Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV, that has several reporters around Syria, said one of the strikes targeted a military position in the village of Saboura, west of Damascus and about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the Lebanon border.

An amateur video said to be shot early Sunday in the Damascus area showed fire lighting up the night sky. The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting.

Uzi Rubin, a missile expert and former Defense Ministry official, told the AP that if the target were Fateh-110 missiles as reported then it is a game changer as they put almost all Israel in range and can accurately hit targets.

Rubin emphasized that he was speaking as a rocket expert and had no details on reported strikes.

“If fired from southern Lebanon they can reach Tel Aviv and even (the southern city of) Beersheba.” He said the rockets are much five times more accurate than the scud missiles that Hezbollah has fired in the past. “It is a game changer because they are a threat to Israel’s infrastructure and military installations,” he said.

Israel’s first airstrike in Syria, in January, also struck Jamraya.

At the time, a U.S. official said Israel targeted trucks next to the research center that carried SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles. The strikes hit both the trucks and the research facility, the official said. The Syrian military didn’t confirm a hit on a weapons shipment at the time, saying only that Israeli warplanes bombed the research center.

Israeli lawmaker Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister and a former chief of staff, declined to confirm the airstrike but said Israel is concerned about weapons falling into the hands of the Islamic militant group amid the chaos of Syria’s civil war.

“We must remember that the Syrian system is falling apart and Iran and Hezbollah are involved up to their necks in Syria helping Bashar Assad,” he told Israel Radio. “There are dangers of weapons trickling to the Hezbollah and chemical weapons trickling to irresponsible groups like al-Qaida.”

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Deitch was reporting from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Brian Murphy contributed to this report from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

In this image taken from video obtained from Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, smoke and fire fill the skyline over Damascus, Syria, early Sunday, May 5, 2013 after an Israeli airstrike. Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said. The attack, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel’s involvement in Syria’s bloody civil war. Syria’s state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research center near the Syrian capital and caused casualties. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via AP video)

In this image taken from video obtained from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, a Israeli airstrikes hit Damascus, Syria, early Sunday, May 5, 2013. Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said. The attack, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel’s involvement in Syria’s bloody civil war. Syria’s state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research center near the Syrian capital and caused casualties. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video)

Syrian Missiles Hammered Again By Israeli Air Strike as Israel Fears Hezbollah, Terrorism — Reports

Syrian TV blames Israel for overnight Damascus blasts; HR group: Attack beyond capabilities of rebels; IDF refuses to comment; US official says IDF targeted “stores of Fateh-110 missiles in transit to Hezbollah from Iran.”

BEIRUT – Israel carried out its second air strikes in days on Syria early on Sunday, a Western intelligence source said, in an attack that shook Damascus with a series of powerful blasts and drove columns of fire into the night sky.

Israel declined to comment, but explosions hit the city a day after an Israeli official said his country had carried out an air strike targeting a consignment of missiles in Syria intended for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Related:

• ‘IAF strike in Syria targeted arms from Iran’

The target of Sunday’s attack, according to Syrian media, was the same Jamraya military research center which was hit by Israel in January. Jamraya, on the northern approaches to Damascus, is just 15 km (10 miles) from the Lebanese border.

From the Jerusalem Post and Reuters

The Western intelligence source said Israel carried out the attack and the operation hit Iranian-supplied missiles which were en route to Hezbollah.

“In last night’s attack, as in the previous one, what was attacked were stores of Fateh-110 missiles that were in transit from Iran to Hezbollah,” the source said.

People search for survivors in the rubble in a damaged area in Syria  Photo: REUTERS/Aref Hretani

Syria’s state television said the strikes were a response to recent military gains by President Bashar Assad’s forces against rebels. “The new Israeli attack is an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups which have been reeling from strikes by our noble army,” it said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the scale of the attack meant it was beyond the military capability of Syrian rebels, and quoted eyewitnesses in the area as saying they saw jets in the sky at the time of the blasts.

The Observatory said the blasts hit Jamraya as well as a nearby ammunition depot. Other activists said a missile brigade and two Republican Guard battalions may also have been targeted in the heavily militarised area just north of Damascus.

Video footage uploaded onto the Internet by activists showed a series of explosions. One lit up the skyline over the city, while another sent up a tower of flames and secondary blasts.

Reports by activists and state media are difficult to verify in Syria because of restrictions on journalists operating there.

If confirmed, Sunday’s attack would be Israel’s third strike inside Syria since late January, but there was no immediate comment from Israeli officials. “We don’t respond to this kind of report,” an Israeli military spokeswoman told Reuters.

MISSILE “BETTER THAN SCUD”

Israel has repeatedly made clear it is prepared to use force to prevent advanced weapons from Syria reaching Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas, who fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006. Assad and Hezbollah are allied to Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, left, with his British counterpart, Phillip Hammond, talked Thursday at the Pentagon about “the need for new options” if Syria uses chemical weapons. Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency

Uzi Rubin, an Israeli missile expert and former defense official said the Fateh-110 missile “is better than the Scud, it has a half-ton warhead”. Iran has said it adapted the missile for anti-ship use by installing a guidance system, he added.

With Assad battling a more than 2-year-old insurgency, the Israelis also worry that the Sunni Islamist rebels could loot his arsenals and eventually hit the Jewish state, ending four decades of relative cross-border calm.

The US State Department and Pentagon had no immediate comment and the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined comment.

Speaking shortly before Sunday’s reported attack, President Barack Obama said Israel had a right to act. “The Israelis justifiably have to guard against the transfer of advanced weaponry to terrorist organization like Hezbollah,” he told Telemundo network during a tour of Latin America.

An Israeli air force F15-E fighter jet takes off for a mission over the Gaza Strip, from the Tel Nof air base in central Israel November 19, 2012. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

There was no immediate indication of how Syria would respond to Sunday’s attack. After Israel’s January raid Damascus protested to the United Nations and the Syrian ambassador to Lebanon promised a “surprise decision”, but no direct military retaliation followed.

The uprising against Assad began with mainly peaceful protests that were met with force and grew into a bloody civil war in which the United Nations says at least 70,000 people have been killed.

Assad has lost control of large areas of north and eastern Syria, and is battling rebels on the fringes of Damascus.

But his forces have launched counter-offensives in recent weeks against the mainly Sunni Muslim rebels around the capital and near the city of Homs, which links Damascus with the Mediterranean heartland of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

Israel Strikes Inside Syria Amid Reports of New Massacres (ABC News)

Related:

Israel Hammers Targets Inside Syria

Thousands flee Syrian city of Banias fearing new ‘massacre’

Isreal Sends Bombers Over Syria To Stop Missiles Bound for Hezbollah

Israeli Airstrike in Syria Targeted Missiles From Iran, U.S. Officials Say

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, left, with his British counterpart, Phillip Hammond, talked Thursday at the Pentagon about “the need for new options” if Syria uses chemical weapons.
Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency

By  MICHAEL R. GORDON and JODI RUDOREN
The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The airstrike that Israeli warplanes carried out in Syria was directed at a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles from Iran that Israel believed was intended for Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese organization, American officials said Saturday.

It was the second time in four months that Israel had carried out an attack in foreign territory intended to disrupt the pipeline of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah, and the raid was a vivid example of how regional adversaries are looking after their own interests as Syria becomes more chaotic.

Iran and Hezbollah have both backed President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war, now in its third year. But as fighting in Syria escalates, they also have a powerful stake in expediting the delivery of advanced weapons to Hezbollah in case Mr. Assad loses his grip on power.

Israel, for its part, has repeatedly cautioned that it will not allow Hezbollah to receive “game changing” weapons that could threaten the Israeli heartland after a post-Assad government took power.

And as Washington considers how to handle evidence of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government, a development it has described as a “red line,” Israel is clearly showing that it will stand behind the red lines it sets.

“The Israelis are saying, ‘O.K., whichever way the civil war is going, we are going to keep our red lines, which are different from Obama’s,’ ” said Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The missiles that were the target of the raid had been sent to Syria by Iran and were being stored in a warehouse at Damascus International Airport when they were struck, according to an American official.

Two prominent Israeli defense analysts said military officials had told them that the targeted shipment included Scud Ds, which Syrians have developed from Russian weapons and have a range up to 422 miles — long enough to reach Eilat, in southernmost Israel, from Lebanon.

But an American official, who asked not to be identified because he was discussing intelligence reports, said they were Fateh-110s.

The Fateh-110 is a mobile, accurate, solid-fueled missile that represents a considerable improvement over the liquid-fueled Scud missile. American officials have said it has the range to strike Tel Aviv and much of Israel from southern Lebanon.

A Pentagon official said in 2010 that Hezbollah was believed to already have a small supply of Fateh-110s. Additional missiles could increase Iran’s ability to threaten Israel through its Lebanese proxy if Israel ever mounted airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear installations.

Syrians with knowledge of security and military matters confirmed the strike, which took place overnight Thursday, saying that Iran had sent arms and rockets to the airport intending to resend them to Hezbollah.

Israeli officials have declined to publicly discuss the operation. But Israel has repeatedly said it is prepared to take military action to stop the shipment of advanced arms or chemical weapons to Hezbollah.

Syrian forces loyal to Mr. Assad have used Fateh-110 missiles against the Syrian opposition. Some American officials are unsure whether the new shipment was intended for use by Hezbollah or by the Assad government, which is believed to be running low on missiles in its bloody civil war.

But one American official said the warehouse that was struck in the Israeli attack was believed to be under the control of operatives from Hezbollah and Iran’s paramilitary Quds force.

In carrying out the raid, Israeli warplanes did not fly over the Damascus airport. Instead, they fired air-to-ground weapons, apparently using the airspace of neighboring Lebanon.

The Lebanese Army said in a statement that Israeli military aircraft “violated the Lebanese airport” on Thursday night and early Friday morning and were flying in circles over several areas of the country.

A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined on Friday night to comment on the airstrike, saying only in a statement, “Israel is determined to prevent the transfer of chemical weapons or other game-changing weaponry by the Syrian regime to terrorists, especially to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

In late January, Israel carried out similar airstrikes in Syria against a convoy carrying SA-17 antiaircraft weapons. The transfer of those weapons to Hezbollah would have jeopardized the Israeli Air Force’s ability to operate in Lebanese airspace.

Israeli officials have also refused to publicly confirm the January attack.

Israel’s official silence reveals the broader dilemma it faces in how to handle Syria’s upheaval. After 40 years of quiet on its northeastern border, Israel is now deeply worried about violence spilling over into its territory and about a post-Assad Syria being a vast, ungoverned area controlled by Islamist or jihadist groups, with no central authority to control militant activity.

But leaders in Jerusalem believe that they have few options beyond the targeted attacks on convoys or warehouses to affect the situation in Syria, seeing any direct action by Israel as likely to backfire by bolstering or uniting anti-Israel forces.

Jonathan Spyer, an expert on Syria and Hezbollah at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, called Thursday’s strike “extremely significant,” and predicted more such attempts to transfer weapons — and Israeli efforts to stop them — in the coming weeks and months.

“Clearly Hezbollah is hoping to benefit from its engagement in Syria, and clearly Israel is committed to preventing that,” he said. Mr. Spyer said that in striking the warehouse, Israel was taking a “calculated risk” that its limited intervention would provoke a limited response, if any.

The Israeli attack came days after Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, issued some of his strongest statements yet of support for Mr. Assad, edging closer to confirming what the Obama administration has already reported: that Hezbollah is backing him militarily, not merely tolerating border crossings by some of its members to defend Lebanese citizens in Syria, as Hezbollah has long maintained.

Mr. Nasrallah said Hezbollah — using the word “we” — would not allow Syria to fall to an armed assault that he said was backed by America and Israel, and added that the party was defending civilians of all sects in Qusayr, a city in Homs Province near the Lebanese border, where rebels say Hezbollah has led recent battles against them.

Michael R. Gordon reported from Washington, and Jodi Rudoren from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger from Washington; Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon; and an employee of The New York Times from Damascus, Syria.

Israel Hammers Targets Inside Syria

By ALEXANDER MARQUARDT | ABC News

Israel Strikes Inside Syria Amid Reports of New Massacres (ABC News)

Israeli warplanes struck weapons inside Syria that were bound for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, American and Israeli officials say.

The attack, which reportedly took place Friday morning, was the second such strike this year, further raising fears that Syria’s two-year civil war could spill over into neighboring countries.

News of the strike comes as graphic evidence emerges of what a watchdog group says are scores of deaths in fighting and mass executions by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in and around  the coastal city of Baniyas.

Hundreds are reportedly fleeing amid fears of further sectarian-fueled violence.

Unidentified Israeli officials told The Associated Press that the targets of the strike were sophisticated “game-changing” weapons, including long range ground-to-ground missiles. It was unclear from the officials’ reports where it took place and whether Israel’s warplanes had attacked from Syrian or Lebanese airspace.

PHOTOS: Syrian War

The Israeli Prime Minister’s office and military declined to comment, which is the standard response following a secret operation. Israel has repeatedly warned that it would not hesitate to act to prevent its enemies from getting there hands on weapons, particularly chemical weapons.

The Reuters news agency reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secretly convened his security cabinet on Thursday night, ahead of the attack.

American officials first told news outlets on Friday night that the strike had taken place overnight Thursday, which was followed Saturday by the anonymous Israeli response.

Syrian state media made no mention of the strike and Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations said he was not aware of any attack.

In January, Syrian officials responded quickly when Israeli warplanes are believed to have targeted a convoy carrying Russian-made SA-17 surface-to-air missiles, which were also said to be bound for Hezbollah.

There hasn’t been an outright claim of responsibility by Israel, but days after that strike, then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak said: “That is another proof that when we say something we mean it. We say that we don’t think it should be allowable to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon.”

A top Israeli defense official dismissed the confirmation of the Friday strike, but not the strike itself.

“I don’t know what or who confirmed what, who are these sources?” asked Amos Gilad, a senior strategist in the ministry. “In my book only the [military] spokesperson unit is official.”

There is no suggestion that any of the weapons struck allegedly were chemical weapons and Gilad said he believes Hezbollah doesn’t want them.

“Syria has large amounts of chemical weaponry and missiles. Everything there is under [regime] control,” Gilad said, according to Israeli reports. “Hezbollah does not have chemical weaponry. We have ways of knowing.

“They are not keen to take weaponry like this, preferring systems that can cover all of the country [of Israel],” he added, referring to the estimated 60,000 rockets in Hezbollah’s arsenal.

RELATED: Obama Does Not Foresee U.S. Boots on the Ground in Syria

The State Department said today that is it “appalled” by reports of scores killed in the Sunni Muslim town of al Bayda, just south of Baniyas, by government forces and loyalist militiamen known as “shabiha” who largely belong to Assad’s Alawite sect.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog group said at least 51 people, including women and children, were summarily executed on Thursday in al Bayda.

That was followed by reports of more deaths in the Ras-al-Nabaa neighborhood of Baniyas.

The SOHR said hundreds of Sunni families were fleeing south to the port city of Tartous to escape what they said was sectarian killing by the regime.

State television said there were operations in the area that “drove back several terrorist groups” and showed rows of weapons it said had been seized from rebels. Rebel groups led by extremist fighters had been mounting operations in that area.

Also on Saturday, Assad visited Damascus University to greet students and inaugurate a statue for student “martyrs” of the two-year conflict. A photo showed the Syrian president getting a warm reception from students reaching out their hands to greet him.

The display of confidence was his second public event this week: On May Day, he thanked workers at a Damascus power plant.