[40][41] The Army Headquarters, personally defended by al-Hafiz, and the broadcast station were attacked, and the ensuing battle left hundreds of people dead, including several civilian bystanders. In this matter, the Mossad concurred with the Military Intelligence assessment. Haaretz.com, the online English edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, gives you breaking news, analyses and opinions about Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World. So why was it chosen? [25], On the night of 78 March, tanks and units loyal to the conspiracy began moving on Damascus. The differences of opinion between Olmert and Barak on the matter of the reactor became evident relatively quickly. However, there were no doubts about the decision itself. Since the attack in Syria we have also improved wonderfully in intelligence, in our range of action, in our ability to attack secretly., During the course of the past decade, the two operational air force squadrons have fiercely guarded the secret of the attack. In Washington the Israeli delegation met with Vice President Dick Cheney and top people in the CIA and the National Security Council. At the 5th National Ba'ath Party Congress, held on 8 May 1962, it was decided to reestablish the party and keep Aflaq as Secretary General of the National Command. The year before, he commanded the mission to kidnap two Israeli army reservists on the northern Israeli border near Zarit that triggered the Second Lebanon War. Rights groups have said the suspected Russian bombing of chicken farms and water stations in Idlib, one of Syria's last rebel-held areas, is meant to push out displaced locals. Y. reached the conclusion that they were looking in the wrong place. F-15 pilot talks about striking the Syrian nuclear reactor. The military's introduction to the Syrian political scene destroyed the oligarchy enabling the middle class to participate in Syrian politics. Syrian Nuclear Reactor Strike: Battle of the Memoirs, U.S. intelligence's presentation about the Syrian nuclear reactor. Russia is reported to have used Shayrat as a base for its Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships, The US said these were the paths of the Syrian Air Force jets that bombed Khan Sheikhoun, The Russian defence ministry claimed that only 23 Tomahawk missiles reached Shayrat, This photograph taken after the missile strike appears to show a damaged hangar at Shayrat, The secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure. Everyone there is jumping up and down in excitement, like in a Hollywood movie. Their mission this time was not to take down enemy aircraft. At the beginning of the discussion Livni still hestitated, but she was convinced by the chief of staffs arguments that the proposed military action would ensure a more certain outcome. The Nasserists became allies of the Ba'ath, even while they supported Gamal Abdel Nasser and the reestablishment of the UAR. When Assad's forces reached the outskirts of the base, it was broad daylight. At the Mossad they remained skeptical. The approach was: confirm or rule out. The surrender of the 70th Armoured Brigade took longer than expected, putting Assad's forces behind schedule. The executions were a rare punitive action used to deal with the participants of a failed coup in Syria, with the typical punishment being exile, imprisonment or reassignment to a foreign diplomatic post. US bases in north-east Syria have come under attack before, with the US responding with air strikes. Fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and Iranian-backed Iraqi militias supporting the Syrian army on the ground are also believed to have used Shayrat. The prime minister chose to ignore this suggestion. The military committee, which would launch the 8 March Revolution, shared most of their views. It was a square building with an area of about 1,600 square meters (more than 17,200 square feet), which was 20 meters (close to 66 feet) high. And then you get to the target area, climb a bit higher, pulling into execution mode. But the flight to the target was relatively calm, without our getting discovered and without any direct threat. As was its wont, Damascus denied everything, and the IAEA did nothing about all this despite Syrias blatant violation of a treaty to which it was a signatory. Shallal Shallal is a village in Shallal is situated close to the villages El Mazyunat Khaddzh Khasan and Jubb as Safa. No one is going to solve them for us. Mar 23, 2018. The "War over Water", also the Battle over Water, was a series of confrontations between Israel and its Arab neighbors from November 1964 to May 1967 over control of water sources in the Jordan River drainage basin. However, the Military Committee, which had expanded its membership with five new members[note 1], ensured that the Ba'athists controlled the real levers of powers. WebThe 1963 Syrian coup d'tat, referred to by the Syrian government as the 8 March Revolution ( Arabic: ), was the successful seizure of power in Syria by the WebA bomb attack on a military bus in central Damascus has killed 14 people, Syrian state media say. Bidens bombing of Iraq and Syria: the normalization of war. The Turks were not happy, but they decided not to make an issue of it, apparently in part because of their retrospective realization that a threat to them was also inherent in Assads secret project. The coup was planned by the military committee, rather than the Ba'ath Party's civilian leadership, but Michel Aflaq, the leader of the party, consented to the conspiracy. Hezbollah accused Israel of the hit, but Israel never officially responded. At the cabinet meeting I had already warned the ministers: Anyone who talks will be responsible for Assad reacting. A cousin doing military service said he had gone to check on his friends at the facility and seen "total devastation", he added. The United States, along with Britain and The military committee's alliance with the Nasserists led to the establishment of secret contact with Colonel Rashid al-Qutayni, the head of the military intelligence, and Colonel Muhammad al-Sufi, the commander of the Homs Brigade. The military committee decided it had to capture al-Kiswah and Qatana, two military camps, seize control of the 70th Armoured Brigade at al-Kiswah, the Military Academy in the city of Homs and the Damascus radio station. This state was planned to be a new Arab kingdom, and not just Syrian, and the state espoused Arab nationalism and pan-Islamic policies. The vast majority of those who took part in the meetings describe a very sharp, determined leader, almost chomping at the bit. And then a phone call came in from Dagan that there was a query from the United States, relates Shkedi. May I suggest they appoint a liaison officer to communicate their views to us? Prime Minister, what do we do? Olmert replied: We destroy it.), In a rare public reference to these developments while giving testimony in the trial against him in the affair involving Morris Talansky (involving unlawful acceptance of gifts of cash from a New York businessman), the prime minister related: The head of the Mossad called me. For me, today it connects with our ability to remove threats in distant countries in the third circle [meaning, Iran]. That was marked as a point of no return, because an attack on a hot reactor was liable to cause tremendous environmental damage. The intelligence people say they told him: There are no more question marks. Read about our approach to external linking. We began to suspect that there, in broad daylight, a reactor was hiding.. And then we started to fly back, in accordance with the planning, at a low altitude. If we fail, you can disown us. [36] While al-Hariri was away, the Committee used the opportunity to undertake a purge of about 30 elite officersmostly political independentsunder al-Hariri's command. The chief of staff asked the prime minister to convene the cabinet urgently and vote on approving the attack. The explanation that was offered was concern about the possibility of hostilities breaking out over mutual miscalculations: Israel and Syria are suspicious of each other and exchanging threats in the context of the results of the last war in Lebanon. Olmert stayed in his office to work. In one plane, a problem was solved, after [it had become clear that] not all the systems were working. The senior members of the newly established regime were Umran, Jadid and at last, Assad. The planning and the unfolding conspiracy was inspired by the Iraqi Regional Branch's successful military coup. The prevailing conspiracy theory held that Barak was waiting for the final version of the Winograd commission investigative report on the second Lebanon war, which was to be published within a few months, in the expectation that the commission would obligate Olmert to resign. Why Now? It was then 2:00 A.M. on Wednesday. Shortly thereafter Olmert phoned call President Bush, who was on a visit to Australia that week. Even the liberal and democratic-inclined founding leaders were partial to forceful takeover, citing the corrupt electoral process. WebShayrat airbase was the target of the US' first deliberate direct attack on Syrian forces since the start of the war six years ago. Moreover, it continued to be taken seriously by Arab leaders. Russia said the Syrian jets had hit a rebel depot full of chemical munitions, but Mr Trump said "there can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons". And that is after the missiles we had absorbed in the Lebanon War and even before we had an interception system like Iron Dome. On Tuesday, September 4, the air force conducted its last mock maneuver in advance of the attack. Olmert, according to Barak, tended to act almost automatically, without due consideration. Gradually, it became clear that there were three competing approaches within the administration, and that the president was trying to choose among them. [27] Another policy was to staff positions in the armed forces with Alawite relatives and friends close to the members of Military Committee. Olmert ordered the briefing of the United States concerning his decision to attack, which he was close to arriving at. [18], In Syria, religious minorities were often underprivileged, and a specific ethnicity usually belonged to a specific social class. On 9 March the NCRC released Lu'ay al-Atassi from jail, promoted him to the rank of lieutenant general, appointed him commander-in-chief and NCRC chairman, the de facto head of state. A significant group of military personnel were recruited from the new middle class or the hinterlands. [21] The Damascus faction was the enemy of the military committee because of their support for Nazim al-Kudsi's Government and the Hawranist were considered as rivals because of their stance against pan-Arabism. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [26], Assad led a small group of conspirators to capture the al-Dumayr air base, 40 kilometers (25mi) north-east of Damascus the only unit that resisted the coup. Later, six civilians were given membership in NCRC, three Ba'athists (Aflaq, al-Bitar and Mansur al-Atrash) and three Nasserists. Eight planes would be allocated to the mission four F-15I "Raam" (Thunder) and four F-16I "Sufa" (Storm) carrying 16 tonnes of bombs. [14] The UAR would prove to be Egypt-dominated, and the Ba'ath Party was forced to dissolve itself, but in 1961 the UAR collapsed because of a military coup in Syria. [26] Captain Salim Hatum, a party officer, seized the radio station. [15] The establishment and the dissolution of the UAR was a catastrophe for the Ba'ath Party as it divided among those who supported the UAR, those who opposed it and those who opposed or supported the traditional leaders of the party. [31][32], However, between 28 April-2 May, the Ba'athist-dominated Military Committee virtually renounced the agreement when it purged over 50 Nasserist officers from their high-ranking positions in the armed forces, leading to a wide-scale propaganda campaign by Egypt via radio denouncing the Ba'ath (Nasserist-leaning newspapers had been previously shut down.) There is no reason for anyone to be in this area except for herdsmen. The opposition-run health directorate says at least 84 people died. "[23] Al-Hariri supported the committee because Khalid al-Azm, the Prime Minister of Syria, was planning to demote him. The Ministry of Defence headquarters were seized without a fight, and General Zahr al-Din, the commander-in-chief, was put under arrest. [2] At this stage, some movements tried to establish a Syrian identity, most notably the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, or became advocates of communism and Islamism. [23], While it planned the coup, the military committee and its members were frowned upon by civilian Ba'athists. People realized that there was something bigger here. Between June and September, the operational planning became more detailed, additional precise information about the destination came in, different methods of action were assembled and finally the crews were slotted into the operation. In mid-August, Olmert convened a dramatic cabinet meeting to discuss the implications of the attack. "It is obvious to any specialist that the decision to carry out an air strike on Syria had been taken in Washington long before the events in Khan Sheikhoun, which only served as a formal pretext," he said, explaining that a "wide range of reconnaissance and planning measures" would have been necessary. USS. The Syrian silence helped this. Barak, in a conversation with Haaretz, rejects the claims against him outright. Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved.