The IDF partially lifted a thick veil of secrecy on Tuesday and confirmed reports by foreign media last month that the Israeli Air Force attacked at least one target deep inside Syrian territory. Information regarding what was hit, exactly when and how remains News media in Israel were barred from reporting about the operation. classified. The government and military had previously muzzled all officials from discussing any aspect of the operation, which apparently took place on September 6. News media in Israel were barred from reporting about the operation except as quotations from foreign news outlets. (Previous Arutz-7 reports on the audacious air strike can be read here and here .) Just yesterday (Tuesday), Syrian President Bashar Assad told BBC that Syria does not plan to retaliate for the attack militarily: "We have our means to retaliate, maybe politically, maybe in other ways. But we have the right to retaliate." Assad also said the attack targeted an unused and empty military area: "[Israel] bombed buildings and constructions related to the military, but it's not used, it's under construction, so there are no people in it, there is no army, there is nothing in it." Despite Israel's initial secrecy regarding the bombing, Likud party chairman and opposition leader MK Binyamin Netanyahu partially acknowledged on September 19 the military operation. Netanyahu told Channel One TV that he had been briefed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on the impending operation "from the start," and that he had personally congratulated Olmert, chairman of the rival Kadima party, on its success. Netanyahu was subsequently slammed by defense officials, who called his public leak to the media "the highest level of irresponsibility." This past Saturday, Syrian Vice President Farouk Al-Shara'a reiterated Syrian claims that Israel's reported raid was not a bombing at all. "Everything reported about this raid is wrong and is part of a psychological warfare that will not fool Syria," he said, adding, "They [Israel] are making up things to justify an aggression in the future." Reports of the operation were, he claimed, an attempt by Israel to "restore the image of the Israeli army following its defeat by the Lebanese resistance last year." While saying that the operation was nothing more than a flyover, Syria's ambassador to the US, Imad Moustapha, told Newsweek last month that Israel would nonetheless "pay a price" for it. Various international reports claimed to know what was bombed and how. The Washington Post reported on September 15 that the IAF raid had targeted facilities used to process nuclear materials shipped in from North Korea several days earlier. The attack targeted an "agricultural research center" that Israel believed was actually a facility used by the Syrians to extract uranium from phosphates, according to unnamed "Israeli defense sources." Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jerida reported that the intelligence for Israel's attack on a Syrian target was provided by Gen. Ali Reza Asgari, who defected from Iran a few months ago. Asgari was allegedly involved in the development of Syria's missile program. Another Kuwaiti paper, Al-Watan , quoted diplomatic sources in Europe as saying that US Al-Shara'a reiterated Syrian claims that Israel's reported raid was not a bombing at all. jets circled above the Israeli fighters and gave them aerial cover during the operation. The newspaper also said that Russian experts are trying to understand how the IAF jets managed to enter deep into Syrian territory without setting off two Russian-built radar systems in place in Syria. The London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat reported last month that, according to NATO sources, the Israeli jets made their way to their target by way of the Turkish border with Syria. The sources told the newspaper that Israeli jets fired four missiles at a target the Israelis believed was being used for weapons development with Iranian and North Korean assistance; only one of the missiles struck the targeted building. The NATO sources were quoted as saying that Israel's main objective was to warn the Syrians that Israel knows about its secret weapons programs, as well as to test the abilities of the new advanced Russian air defense system recently purchased by Syria.
