Israel bombs Hizbollah-bound missiles in Syria: official

Israel has carried out an air strike targeting a shipment of missiles in Syria bound for Hizbollah guerrillas in neighbouring Lebanon, an Israeli official said yesterday.

Israel had long made clear it is prepared to resort to force to prevent advanced Syrian weapons, including President Bashar al-Assad’s reputed chemical arsenal, reaching his Shi’ite Muslim Hizbollah allies or Islamist insurgents taking part in a more than two-year-old uprising against his government.

Hizbollah, allied with Israel’s arch-enemy Iran, waged an inconclusive war with the Jewish state in 2006 and remains a potent threat in Israeli eyes. Israelis also worry if Assad is toppled, Islamist rebels could turn his guns on them after four decades of calm in the Golan Heights border area.

The target of Friday’s raid was not a Syrian chemical weapons facility, a regional security source earlier said.

A US official, who also declined to be identified, said on Friday the target was apparently a building.

The Israeli official who acknowledged the raid and described its target spoke on condition of anonymity. Israel’s Government has not formally taken responsibility for the action or confirmed it happened.

The attack took place after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet approved it in a secret meeting on Thursday night, the regional security source said.

CNN quoted unnamed US officials as saying Israel most likely conducted the strike “in the Thursday-Friday time frame” and its jets did not enter Syrian air space.