DAMASCUS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Israeli war jets sneaked off radars and hit a center for scientific research in a suburb of Syrian capital Damascus at dawn Wednesday, the General Command of the Syrian Military said in a statement.
The military statement, splashed in a thick red news bar on the state-TV, said the Israeli fighter jets penetrated at dawn Wednesday the Syrian airspace and directly struck one of the country's scientific research center located in the Jumraya suburb of the capital.
The attack came after many unsuccessful attempts by the "armed terrorist groups" to capture this site over the past months, the military statement said, hinting that the Israeli air raid played in the hands of the rebels.
It said the facility was responsible for lifting up the level of resistance and self-defense, adding that the attack led to the killing of two workers and the wounding of five others.
The war jets sneaked in from the border region of al-Shaikh Mountain at a law altitude and under the radar and headed toward Jumraya, said the statement, which totally rubbished as unfounded media reports claiming that the airstrike targeted a convoy that was allegedly heading from Syria to Lebanon.
Western media said the convoy was believed to be carrying weaponries to the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group, a staunch ally to Syria.
Decrying the move as "flagrant intervention" to the Syrian airspace, the military contended that Israel is the driving force and beneficiary of the terrorist acts committed in Syria with the partnership of Qatar and Turkey.
It said that the Israeli move would not dissuade Syria from keeping on supporting the resistance movements, the foremost of which is the Palestinian cause.
While condemning the move, the military statement said nothing about a possible payback for the Israeli aggression.
Syria has technically been in a state of war with Israel since its creation in 1948. Their enmity has risen with the Syrian administration rendering support to the Hezbollah.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israel war. Syria fought another war in 1973 after which it regained small parts of land that Israel occupied six years earlier.
DAMASCUS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- The leader of Syria's main opposition coalition in exile, Moaz al-Khatib, said Wednesday that he is ready to hold talks with representatives of the Syrian administration in a bid to "curb the bloodshed of Syrians" and to prepare for a transitional period for the conflict-ravaged country. Full story
BEIRUT, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- A military source denied to Xinhua Wednesday that any Israeli air strike had taken place on the Lebanese territory.
Some media outlets have reported earlier in the day that Israel air forces carried out a strike overnight on a weapon convoy from Syria near the Lebanon-Syria border area and hit it when it just crossed the border from Syria into Lebanon. Full story
JERUSALEM, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that while American military action can eliminate Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, an Israeli strike will only temporarily set it back, local media reported Wednesday.
"[A strike] is a defined and specific mission that the United States is capable of executing perfectly, whereas we are capable of causing significant damage," Netanyahu earlier this week told the Board of Governors of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), an international pro-Israel advocacy group, according to a Wednesday report in the Ma'ariv daily. Full story
|
