The move was denied by the Russian defence ministry, but further satellite images taken at the end of March 2016 showed several Ka-52 Alligator and Mi-28N Night Hunter attack helicopters had also arrived, according to IHS Jane's. The Syrian pro-opposition website, Orient News, meanwhile said the jet's pilot had been identified as the commander of an Su-22 squadron at Shayrat. "[27] From that day, Umran gave the civilians a faint idea of what the committee members were planning. In the background, of course, there was the historical memory of the Begin doctrine and the precedent of the bombing of the reactor in Iraq in 1981 (an operation in which MI chief Yadlin had been one of the eight pilots who carried out the attack). 19641967 military confrontations between Israel and its neighbouring Arab states, This article is about geopolitical struggle between Israel vs. Lebanon and Syria. Our assumption was that possibly the operation would be revealed publicly, and the Syrians would respond, and then it would become the opening move in a war. In those meetings Netanyahu and Barak were very firm in their opinion that Israel had to attack the reactor. Its a story that ended well, says Amos Yadlin. In this matter, the Mossad concurred with the Military Intelligence assessment. [9], It was in this environment that the ideology of Ba'athism came into being. The collapse of the UAR, coupled with mutinies, purges and transfers left the officer corps in complete disarray and open to anti-government agitation. It is a plutogenic reactor, the head of the Mossad told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In the air force it was decided to brief only the top command in each of the two operational squadrons about the nature of the target that was to be attacked. Shallal is situated nearby to Kur Udani and Ranhebas. The Syrian branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was able to recruit youth from radical peasant movements and thus was able to mobilise large sectors of the population. Othmans negligence turned out to be the worst security offense in the history of Syria. WebBy ALBERT AJI and BASSEM MROUE October 20, 2021. In July 1953, Israel began construction of an intake for its National Water Carrier at the Daughters of Jacob Jordan Bridge in the demilitarized zone north of the Sea of Galilee. The latter's anti-UAR government had also been overthrown by pro-UAR officers in 1963. Husni al-Za'im became the first military dictator of Syria in 1949, but in 1950, military officer Adib Shishakli gained power behind the scenes, and by 1953 had established another military dictatorship. It was one of the Israeli army's most successful operations, but was censored for over a decade. He announced his defection to opposition forces in a video aired by Al Arabiya TV on 25 December 2012. Olmert consulted, individually, three of the previous prime ministers: Shimon Peres (who a few months later was elected president of Israel), leader of the opposition Benjamin Netanyahu and citizen Ehud Barak. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? It occurred to me that we could wake up the next morning and the horizon would be full of [incoming] missiles. The Mossad intelligence division distributed a document with an assessment to that effect in February 2004. They were concerned about the possibility of a blunder that could develop from mistaken intelligence information, as had happened to the Americans in the affair of the weapons of mass destruction (that were not found) on the eve of the Iraq War in 2003. The US carried out additional airstrikes targeting enemy positions and rocket launchers near Deir ez-Zor in northeast Syria following a rocket attack on coalition bases 02/15/2022. Efrat will know about it only now, when the articles and interviews are published. A Russian defence ministry spokesman said an equipment depot, a training building, a mess, six Syrian Air Force MiG-23s in repairing hangars, as well as a radar station were destroyed. Summary. 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. According to most observers, including Johnston himself, the Arab non-adoption of the plan was not total rejection. The squadron commander and his deputy take the ones on whom they agree hands down will get the bombs to the target.. [d], Later, on 19 June, Chief of Staff al-Hariri led a high-ranking delegation that included Prime Minister al-Bitar, Aflaq and Education Minister Sami Droubi to Algeria for a state visit. (res.) USS. The disagreement between them was a meeting between a certified lightweight who had never approved any real operational planning (Olmert) and a professional who had engaged in that for decades, from the days of Sayeret Matkal (the elite commando force Barak had led), and up through the weekly discussions on operations and incursions in the defense ministers and the chief of staffs offices (Barak). [37][38] Al-Hariri was ordered to take a direct flight to the Syrian embassy in the United States, where he was reassigned as the embassy's military attache. Ba'athism. There was unease because the home front was not aware of what might be waiting for it. Each plane drops two bombs. 2023 BBC. The Arab Ba'ath Movement was established by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar in the 1940s, others who played a notable role in the early stages of the Ba'athist movement were Zaki al-Arsuzi, Wahib al-Ghanim and Jallal al-Sayyid. Ten Years of Silence on Syria Strike. The Nasserists became allies of the Ba'ath, even while they supported Gamal Abdel Nasser and the reestablishment of the UAR. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. 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. 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. This isnt about bunkers with centrifuges 1,500 kilometers [more than 900 miles] away. At the cabinet meeting I had already warned the ministers: Anyone who talks will be responsible for Assad reacting. Picture taken from a U.S. intelligence presentation. Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using a "de-confliction line" set up to ensure US warplanes attacking IS positions in Syria are not accidentally attacked by Russian jets, he added. The PM hoped that the U.S. would take it upon itself to destroy the reactor. [3], The mandate was feudal in character, and it rested on a semi-liberal oligarchic social base. At about 03:40 local time (00:40 GMT) on Friday, two US Navy destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea launched a total of 59 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) at the airbase. The Military Academy at Homs was put under Ba'athist controlseveral hundred Ba'athists, including Assad's brother Rifaat al-Assad, were given a crash course in military teaching before being given command. I said to him: The air force did what it was assigned to do., The prime minister celebrated the achievement by raising a toast. [29] Assad became the de facto head of the Syrian Air Force, a dizzying promotion for a man in his thirties. Satellite imagery obtained by Stratfor that December showed construction work to improve the airbase. When he looked outside, he saw larges areas on fire, he said. The new chief of staff initiated a process of rehabilitation but when he was shown the findings from Othmans computer, Ashkenazi realized that he was facing a series of problems completely different from what he had been preparing for: how to get rid of the new threat in a way that would not spark a new war with Syria and Hezbollah and if a war did break out how to ensure that the IDF would win this time. Had it not been for his carelessness and the Mossads brilliant work, it is doubtful that the operation to destroy the reactor would have taken place. The scheme was only marginally feasible, as it was technically difficult and expensive. There is no in-between. The picture was stolen from the laptop of the director of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission. The differences of opinion between Olmert and Barak on the matter of the reactor became evident relatively quickly. The detailed intelligence helped convince those countries of the justice of the Israeli move and neutralized the possibility that the attack would become the cause of an international scandal. However we, under his orders, did not let go of it for a long time.. As head of the Bureau of Officers' Affairs, Jadid appointed friends to senior positions, purged his enemies and appointed several Ba'athists to senior positions. Though the relations between Olmert and Barak were fairly good, and it appeared that Olmert wanted Barak in Defense, Barak had voiced some harsh criticism of the prime ministers conduct during the war in Lebanon. WebThe United States stands with Burundi in the face of al-Shababs May 3 attack on Burundian soldiers serving at the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) base in Ceel 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. But when you put researchers on a project, if theres something they will find it.. While they failed to approve it politically, they nevertheless seemed determined to adhere to the technical details of the agreement. The Syrian nuclear reactor, before the Israeli strike. And during the time that passed, the IDFs preparedness for war was improved immeasurably. [42] Nasser also announced his withdrawal from the 17 April unity agreement.[40][42]. Nevertheless, the Arab states were not prepared to coexist with a project which seemed likely to make a major contribution to Israel's economic growth. And since the existence of Israel is a danger that threatens the Arab nation, the diversion of the Jordan waters by it multiplies the dangers to Arab existence. [7] The same elite that had governed Syria during the mandate continued in power, and they ruled in the same manner. The new middle class consisted of capitalists and entrepreneurs who opposed the traditional elite the monopolisation of power by the traditional elite led to the radicalisation of the new middle-class. At the cabinet meeting, Ashkenazi presented the various alternatives and recommended attacking. [25], On the night of 78 March, tanks and units loyal to the conspiracy began moving on Damascus. State media initially described the Damascus attack as a roadside bombing. [4] Agricultural revenues were highly skewed the top two percent of the population received 50 percent of the income, while the middle class (merchants or middle landowning groups), which was 18 percent of the population, earned 25 percent of agricultural revenues. In contrast to the Iraqi regional branch, the Syrian regional branch did not have mass support or a significant support base in the middle class. Syrian Nuclear Reactor Strike: Battle of the Memoirs, U.S. intelligence's presentation about the Syrian nuclear reactor. Even the liberal and democratic-inclined founding leaders were partial to forceful takeover, citing the corrupt electoral process. We went through the whole process until the correct decision was made. I see on the thermal system I have on the plane and also outside the bombs are hitting the structure. However the British, who had helped establish the state after World War I, made a secret agreement (Sykes-Picot Agreement) with France and established the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. 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. Attacking a hot reactor was liable to create tremendous environmental pollution. In one plane, a problem was solved, after [it had become clear that] not all the systems were working. There is a tremendous explosion that you see in the darkness and after that, total destruction. Sources told the Guardian newspaper that US intelligence officials believed Russian personnel were at Shayrat "when Sarin was loaded on to a Syrian jet", but that "they have not established whether the Russians knew it was happening". On December 19, 2003, a Saturday morning, I turned on the radio and heard on a news broadcast that the Americans and the British had persuaded Libya to dismantle its nuclear program, says Amnon Sufrin, who was then head of the intelligence division at the Mossad. Web23 Feb 2022. Cheney, as usual the rapacious hawk, wanted the United States to attack and destroy the reactor as a public and deterrent message, a warning against the development of additional secret nuclear programs in other countries. WebShallal is a village in Syria. Shamal. Barak, shouting, argued that he had not authorized the presentation. Y. reached the conclusion that they were looking in the wrong place. While the conspirators of the military committee were all young, the sitting regime had been slowly disintegrating and the traditional elite had lost effective political power.[20]. So why was it chosen? We made certain five times that it was all systems go., Even today, he remembers the moment of impact. In mid-June the former prime minister won the primary for Labor Party leadership, replacing Peretz in that position, and he announced that he himself would be the new defense minister. The U.S. military covered up 2019 airstrikes in Syria that killed up to 64 women and children, a possible war crime, during the battle against Islamic State, the New York Times reported on Saturday. For other water conflicts, see, Arab League summit meeting convened in Cairo, "Turning Water into Fire: the Jordan River as the Hidden Factor in The Six Day War", http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu18ce/uu18ce0a.htm#10.%20principles%20for%20confidence%20building%20measures%20in%20the%20jordan%20river%20watershed, http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80858e/80858E0m.htm, "An American in Palestine: Elwood Mead and Zionist Water Resource Planning, 1923-1936", Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, Wave of violence in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 194, UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 242, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=War_over_Water_(Jordan_river)&oldid=1146917736, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 27 March 2023, at 19:01. 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. Israel completed its National Water Carrier project, which siphoned water from the Sea of Galilee in 1964. He was a far more formidable opponent than al-Kudsi, and the Iraqi Regional Branch managed to take power through an alliance not only with military officers, but also with segments of the middle class. Hezbollah accused Israel of the hit, but Israel never officially responded. The following afternoon, the Syrian news agency issued a laconic statement to the effect that during the night its air defense system had chased away Israeli planes that had penetrated Syrias air space. Olmert and Bush in Washington, D.C., 2007. Ahmad Suwaydani, one of the new members of the Military Committee, was appointed Head of Military Intelligence and Mazyad Hunaydi became Head of the Military Police. The Syrian conflict began unfolding 11 years ago, in early March 2011. The two spoke, at Olmerts request, on a secure line. The plebeian character of the struggle and the radical ideologies spawned radical solutions to the agrarian problem. There were no political considerations behind his recommendations. WebShayrat airbase was the target of the US' first deliberate direct attack on Syrian forces since the start of the war six years ago. The plan was that Assad would lead a company from al-Hariri's brigade to capture the air base before dawn to prevent air strikes. They negotiated their surrender even though, according to Assad himself, their forces could have defeated his rebel company in combat. Some 59 cruise missiles were Yet in 2008, IAEA inspectors found traces of radioactive substances there, and the agency said there was a high probability that a nuclear reactor had been in operation at the site. However, that day the military intelligence raided the apartment where the plotters were planning to assemble. A Syrian living a few kilometres from the airbase told the BBC that he was awoken at about 03:45 by the force of the explosions. "[23] Al-Hariri supported the committee because Khalid al-Azm, the Prime Minister of Syria, was planning to demote him. "We are assessing the results of the strike," he added. According to him, he did not recommend attacking a hot reactor, but rather said that it was necessary to prepare for any eventuality and that the reactor becoming operational should not cause the decision-makers in Israel to despair. Amir relates that a number of years later he watched a video that had been filmed in the command post during the attack. Did this woman die because her genitals were cut? 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. According to various reports at the time, Mughniyehs friend General Suleiman had no kinder a fate. Capt Davis stressed that the US had taken "extraordinary measures" to avoid civilian casualties and that planners "took precautions to minimise risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield". When Assad's forces reached the outskirts of the base, it was broad daylight. In Washington the Israeli delegation met with Vice President Dick Cheney and top people in the CIA and the National Security Council. Now there are only exclamation points. The prime minister breathed a sigh and asked: What do we do with this? We said to him: We destroy. (In Olmerts circle, as often happens in such cases, they remember an opposite course of events. This is the story of a single night more than a decade ago, and a daring, hair-raising operation executed by the Israeli air force, army and intelligence In mid-August, Olmert convened a dramatic cabinet meeting to discuss the implications of the attack. And that is after the missiles we had absorbed in the Lebanon War and even before we had an interception system like Iron Dome. It certainly started as an uprising of Syrian citizens. In the preparations for the operation, we practiced ways of arriving, implementation, routes, distances, without telling the pilots and the navigators who were taking part what the target was. Assad conducted the nuclear project in great secrecy, with very few partners to the secret. Olmert conducted himself in this affair with courage and skill and did not shy away from making decisions. The planning and the unfolding conspiracy was inspired by the Iraqi Regional Branch's successful military coup. Michael Hayden, the head of the CIA, wrote years later in The Washington Post that he told Bush that his agency had concluded that the site at Al Kibar was part of a nuclear weapons program and there was no other explanation for its existence. We had hundreds of miles to fly, some of them in an area full of missiles. According to reports in the American media, his assassination was a join Mossad-CIA operation in revenge for Mughniyehs role in hijacking a TWA airliner in Beirut in 1985, and for attacking U.S. Marines in Lebanon two years earlier. [6] Israel and the West, he said, would lose the element of surprise. [37], The Nasserists still maintained a relatively high level of strength in the military, despite the purges, and on 18 July, under the leadership of Jassem Alwan and the help of Egyptian intelligence, they attempted to launch a daytime coup against the new government. This was a breathtaking drama, and unfortunately it played out in front of the top military commanders.. Shortly thereafter Olmert phoned call President Bush, who was on a visit to Australia that week. This is right next door. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was recommending a diplomatic move to thwart the reactor by means of applying pressure on Assad. This small and secret coterie headed by Suleiman was directly subordinate to the president; in Israel it was called the shadow army.. He succeeded in persuading Bush to halt the diplomatic move and to commit to preventing leaks. Trump: "Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children". The material left no room for doubt: The plutogenic reactor that Y. had written about did indeed exist it had been found in the heart of the desert and was in advanced stages of construction, and nearing completion. The chief of staff asked the prime minister to convene the cabinet urgently and vote on approving the attack. Even after the reactor was bombed, ripples in the Syrian-Iranian axis continued, with the incessant involvement of Hezbollah. [41] President Lu'ay al-Atassi subsequently resigned, signalling his disapproval of the executions. The conflict in Syria is often referred to as a civil war, meaning a conflict between citizens of the same country. Amos Yadlin. It is especially surprising that this is also the story of a secret that was maintained for a long time here in Israel despite the considerable personal interests of a number of those who are now involved in its publication. We were flying in a hostile area. In manning the crews, We choose the best. Pentagon spokesman Capt Jeff Davis said Shayrat airbase was used to store chemical weapons, and that US intelligence assessed that aircraft from there had dropped bombs filled with a nerve agent on Khan Sheikhoun, killing more than 80 people. Dagans weekly meeting with the prime minister in Tel Aviv was scheduled for 8 A.M. the next day. Olmert had to take into account a reaction that was liable to include direct hits on civilian and military infrastructures, from northern Israel to the Tel Aviv area. It had never happened that they came to an Israeli prime minister and told him: Very close to your home something is being built that could destroy the state. 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. WebThe Bombing of Shallal occurred on 23 January 1965 during the War over Water when the Israeli Air Force bombed the Syrian water pumping station at Shallal to prevent the In January 1964 an Arab League summit meeting convened in Cairo and decided: The establishment of Israel is the basic threat that the Arab nation in its entirety has agreed to forestall. Shkedi emerged from the control booth [in the command post] only after the planes were out of the range of danger. A cell of Mossad agents from the Keshet unit broke into the apartment where Othman was staying and within less than an hour vacuumed up the information that was on the Syrian officials personal computer, which had remained in the apartment while he was taking part in the conference. Bibi, he said to his veteran opponent, its at midnight tonight. Netanyahu wished him success and said, I will react in accordance with the circumstances. Olmert, like Ashkenazi, stressed the need for secrecy after the attack as well. Meir Dagan was skeptical about the findings; Syria was not a top priority for Mossad activity and the assessment did not constitute a breakthrough in the gathering of substantial proof. The leader of Islamic State and one of the worlds most wanted men has been killed during an overnight raid in Syria by US special forces.. [1] The issue of water sharing from the JordanYarmuk system turned out to be a major problem between Israel, Syria and Jordan. The military committee did not look favourably on the civilian leadership led by Michel Aflaq, objecting to his dissolution of the Ba'ath Party during the UAR years. The prime minister was concerned about two possibilities that could thwart the operation a prior leak to the media or the reactor becoming hot (activated) a development that intelligence assessed was liable to happen toward the end of September. Gates was pretty much in shock. The prime ministers two close advisers, Yoram Turbovich and Shalom Turgeman, flew to Washington to brief top administration people. Bidens bombing of Iraq and Syria: the normalization of war. [The threat] at the existential level is of an unprecedented order of magnitude.. The reason for the armyparty alliance in the first place was to safeguard the party from repression. However, this did not change the balance of power, and the officers still controlled the country. Until then MI had been focusing on the more accepted channel of countries working their way toward a nuclear project an installation for enriching uranium, based on centrifuges. In the Israeli defense establishment, the concern was that if the diplomatic channel were employed, Assad was liable to position anti-aircraft batteries near the reactor or even to establish something like a kindergarten there as a human shield. The prime minister was also afraid of a leak to the media by American officials who opposed an Israeli attack. WebThe "War over Water", also the Battle over Water, refers to a series of confrontations between Israel and its Arab neighbors from November 1964 to May 1967 over control of According to the plan, upon hitting the target, all the planes were required to report to the others over the communications network. The next breakthrough, in fact the turning point of the whole affair, occurred in Vienna in early March 2007. The committee decided state policies before the sessions of the NCRC, and by doing so became the real seat of power. The bottom 80 percent received the remainder. [26], 820 people were reported killed during the takeover and another 20 were executed shortly afterwards. On the way back, in order to reduce weight and save fuel, one of the planes jettisoned an empty fuel container. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [43] They were released exactly a year later and exiled,[44] after lobbying by Nasser and Iraqi President Abdul Salam Arif. I meet with him as a matter of course. The war and the investigations revealed hugs gaps in the armys capabilities and the readiness of its units. In 1962, Aflaq convened a Ba'ath Party congress and re-established the party. [8] The failure in the 1948 ArabIsraeli War led to the downfall of the traditional elite and the rise of the military in politics. When Olmert expressed concern about the possibility that the Syrians would preempt Israel and activate the reactor, Barak downplayed the risk of attacking a hot reactor. The surrender of the 70th Armoured Brigade took longer than expected, putting Assad's forces behind schedule. Despite the shadow of failure in Lebanon, if all these claims are true, the Olmert administration demonstrated an aggressive and particularly active line against the nuclear threat and against the threats of terrorism and guerrilla warfare in neighboring countries. They are the best in the world. Half a year later, the commander of the shadow army was attending a banquet at his holiday home in the Syrian seaside town of Latakia when he was shot by snipers from a boat. The Bombing of Shallal occurred on 23 January 1965 during the War over Water when the Israeli Air Force bombed the Syrian water pumping station at This system remained unchanged until the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR). Read about our approach to external linking.
