The complex near Masyaf, close to the Mediterranean coast, was “the flagship of Iranian manufacturing efforts in our region,” Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said in a briefing with reporters.
(Reuters) Israel’s army said on Thursday that its special forces raided an underground missile production site in Syria in September, which it said was prepared to produce hundreds of precision missiles for use against Israel by Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
The complex near Masyaf, close to the Mediterranean coast, was “the flagship of Iranian manufacturing efforts in our region”, said Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani in a briefing with reporters.
This facility is designed to manufacture hundreds of strategic missiles a year, from start to finish, for Hezbollah to use in its air strikes against Israel.
He said that the factory, dug into the side of a mountain, had been watched by Israel since construction began in 2017 and was about to be able to manufacture precision-guided missiles, some with a range of up to 300 km.
This capability was becoming active, so we are talking about an immediate threat – he said.
Details of the September 8 attack were reported in the Israeli press, but Shoshani said that this was the first confirmation from the military, which rarely comments on special forces operations.
At the time, Syrian state media said that at least 16 people had been killed in Israeli air strikes in the west of the country.
Shoshani said that the night raid was “one of the most complex operations the IDF has carried out in recent years”. Accompanied by air strikes, it involved dozens of aircraft and around 100 troops transported by helicopters, he said.
At the end of the attack, the troops dismantled the facilities, including the machinery and manufacturing equipment, he said.
Israeli troops
The army released images showing Israeli troops embarking and disembarking from helicopters and moving through what appears to be a concrete-lined tunnel and an industrial site, where they examine documents.
Other images show senior commanders in a control center, apparently as the operation continues.
Israeli officials have accused the former Syrian government of President Bahar al-Assad of helping the Lebanon-based Hezbollah movement receive weapons from Iran and say they are determined to stop the flow of arms to Lebanon.
With the collapse of Assad’s government at the end of last year, Israel launched a series of attacks on Syrian military infrastructure and weapons manufacturing sites to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.