We were able to say with certainty: This reactor is intended to produce plutonium and for military purposes only, says Yadlin. After the attack, Ashkenazi sent MI chief Yadlin to the Turkish chief of staff to explain the considerations and circumstances and to reassure him that there had been absolutely no violation of Turkish sovereignty during the operation. According to what had agreed upon in advance, there was no communication between the planes: We maintained complete silence during the flight. The ninth communique reinstated the five members of the military committee in the armed forces. 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. On July 13, Bush informed Olmert in a conversation over the direct and secure red phone line between the White House and the Prime Ministers Office in Jerusalem that he opposed a military attack on the reactor. 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. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, two days after the Israeli atrike. 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. At times, Barak told someone, he had the feeling that Olmert was playing the role of a leader based on what he had seen in American movies. They negotiated their surrender even though, according to Assad himself, their forces could have defeated his rebel company in combat. The group was successful, and they promised al-Hariri that "If we succeed, you can become chief of staff. 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. Considering that the members of the Military Committee were all too young to be perceived as the real leaders of Syria by the populace, the Military Committee appointed Colonel Amin al-Hafiz to the post of Minister of the Interior. [c], At the beginning, there were no signs of the quarrels that would destroy the military committee. The advisers, as well as a number of ministers, first and foremost Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, were for the most part summoned individually for personal meetings with the prime minister at his residence, where they were informed about details of the affair, mostly by Yadlin and Dagan. [30], Pressure from consistent pro-Nasser demonstrations in northern Syria and Damascus and from pro-union Ba'athist leaders like Jamal al-Atassi, the Nasserists and the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), coupled with the weakness of the Ba'athists at the popular level in Syria, led to unification efforts between the new government and the governments of Egypt and Iraq. Amir, one of the F-15 pilots who took part in the attack, was dual: to advance the operation without most of the crews knowing what it was about and at the same time to prepare the rest of the squadron for the possibility that as a result of the operation, hostilities might break out, and all this while this group was not privy to preparations for the attack itself. In 2005, Col. (today reserve brigadier general) Eli Ben Meir had taken up the position of head of the technology field in the research branch. On August 31, Olmert and Barak held a limited operational consultation with the heads of the defense organizations. Today that same Soleimani commands Irans military moves in the Middle East, including the basing of the Shiite militias in southern Lebanon, the next front where Israel is likely to find itself acing Syria and Iran. While no group immediately claimed responsibility for 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. What actually is/was 'Shallal'? I can't find mention of it anywhere. In the week the prime minister went to Washington, a person who did not share Bushs enthusiasm for Olmert returned to the core of decision-makers in Israel: Ehud Barak. Ashkenazi showed up together with many of the generals, in part so as not to arouse suspicion that something was afoot. strikes that killed civilians in Syria In a one-on-one conversation Olmert tried to resolve their differences of opinion, but according to him Barak continued to try to convince ministers that a premature bombing of the reactor would cost Israel a war. [citation needed]. This small and secret coterie headed by Suleiman was directly subordinate to the president; in Israel it was called the shadow army.. At 8 P.M. he summoned leader of the opposition Netanyahu to the prime ministers residence. According to Sufrin, after a month and a half of investigating, the Mossad research team concluded that Syria was working on a nuclear program of its own. He pushed for formulation of alternative proposals. Shortly thereafter Olmert phoned call President Bush, who was on a visit to Australia that week. [18], In Syria, religious minorities were often underprivileged, and a specific ethnicity usually belonged to a specific social class. The approach was: confirm or rule out. Bidens bombing of Iraq and Syria: the normalization of war. 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. AP Photo/Hassan Ammar. Russia launches pre-dawn missile attack on Ukraine, Chaos at port as thousands rush to leave Sudan. Uranium fuel rods. There was unease because the home front was not aware of what might be waiting for it. This was a breathtaking drama, and unfortunately it played out in front of the top military commanders.. [7]. Israel has fired several missiles at Syrias border province of Quneitra, causing material damage. All the intelligence people who knew Bashar told me: Its not like Bashar. [1] The coup was met by indifference in the population at large. Additional attacks on American bases in Syria Friday after US 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". The second option that was ultimately accepted, was sketched by the air force commander on a paper napkin in a brief conversation with the prime minister. Olmert quoted one of Assads speeches from early June in which the Syrian president predicted that toward the end of the summer there would be a development that would completely change the reality of the Middle East. The runway, taxiways and aircraft at parking places were not damaged, he added. It was decided to attack but to authorize a small forum the trio of Olmert, Barak and Livni to decide upon the timing of the attack and the nature of the operation. Do you remember something in the north that was bothering me? said the prime minister to the president. By no stretch of the imagination will you come back without the reactor having been destroyed. Then, even if Livni were to replace him as prime minister, Barak would lead the Syria operation and take all the credit. 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. Olmert and Bush in Washington, D.C., 2007. 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. But when you put researchers on a project, if theres something they will find it.. War over Water (Jordan river) - Wikipedia 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. DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) Two bombs attached to a bus carrying Syrian troops exploded in Damascus during the Olmerts behavior toward top people in the defense establishment seemed too folksy to him too much hugging and backslapping, not enough considered judgment. After mulling everything over, and at the advice of former Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Olmert decided to share the sensitive new information about Syria with the Americans. Only now, more than a decade later, has the military censor allowed the Israeli media to report the history of this affair and even that, still with restrictions. Iran was the focus of our interest, Sufrin says now, but we delegated a team of researchers to examine the possibility of a nuclear program in Syria. This state was planned to be a new Arab kingdom, and not just Syrian, and the state espoused Arab nationalism and pan-Islamic policies. Prior to the meeting the president consulted his advisers. The US says it conducted two rounds of air strikes in eastern Syria in one day against groups affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC). At that same time, hundreds of people on the ground began suffering symptoms consistent with reaction to a nerve agent, according to the doctors and nurses who treated them. Defense Minister Amir Peretz briefed his American counterpart Robert Gates, who was in Israel on a routine visit. When the intelligence people analyzed the material from Vienna, they were appalled. 14 people died in a military bus blast, the deadliest attack in - NPR At the Mossad they remained skeptical. We went through the whole process until the correct decision was made. USS. Shamal was laid down 23 September 1994 by Bollinger Shipyards, Lockport, Gen. Shelly Gutman, the commander of the Hatzerim base, was waiting. [19], In 1962, the military committee of the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party spent most of its time planning to take power through a conventional military coup. However, Hayden added a reservation: No other elements of such a program were identified, such as development of a warhead. At 1:30, we got back to Israel and landed at the base. It isnt there any more.. 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 Muhammad Umran, a leading member of the military committee, was a delegate at the 5th National Congress, and told Aflaq of the military committee's intentions Aflaq consented to the coup, but no agreement was made between him and the committee on how to share power after the coup. In 1955 the Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan (Johnston Plan) was accepted by the technical committees of both Israel and the Arab League, but the Arab League Council decided not to ratify the plan on 11 October 1955. [25], On the night of 78 March, tanks and units loyal to the conspiracy began moving on Damascus. Mapcarta, the open map. The tank landed on the Turkish side of the Syrian-Turkish border, creating two problems: First, the incident, and the photos of the tank with Hebrew writing on it, were evidence that an Israeli force had been in the area. The first indication of the Syrian regimes interest in purchasing nuclear research facilities came to the notice of Israel and the Western countries in the late 1990s, toward the end of the elder Assads rule. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. If the ground-to-air-systems wake up, you are in a vipers nest. [26] Captain Salim Hatum, a party officer, seized the radio station. 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). military hid airstrikes that killed dozens The operation was the finest hour of a prime minister who just a year earlier had led Israel into a failed war in Lebanon and who less than two years later would be compelled to resign before going on to serve a prison term for crimes of corruption. 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. In the force they were worried about a series of possible complications during the attack, ranging from the presence of a concealed battery of anti-aircraft guns in the area of the reactor to the concern that it was not possible to determine with certainty that the reactor would be destroyed in a single sortie, so that a second one, immediately following the first, might be needed to complete the mission, this time under more complicated circumstances, in which the aim of the operation had already been revealed to the Syrians. [b], Modern Syria was first established in 1920 as the Arab Kingdom of Syria under King Faisal I. Syrian Civil War | Facts & Timeline | Britannica She is familiar with this.. The middle class owned the majority of small to medium properties. [39] Unsuccessful, he left the country for France in a self-imposed exile on 8 July. The dilemma Israel faced with respect to the choice between effectiveness and secrecy did not end with the question of the operation itself. This isnt about bunkers with centrifuges 1,500 kilometers [more than 900 miles] away. Picture taken from a U.S. intelligence presentation. Shallal is situated nearby to Kur Udani and Ranhebas. General Mohammed Suleiman, commander of the Syrian shadow army, was the contact person for the Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders and for Imad Mughniyeh, who headed Hezbollahs terrorism effort. In Washington the Israeli delegation met with Vice President Dick Cheney and top people in the CIA and the National Security Council. It was the prime minister at that time, Menachem Begin, who established the doctrine whereby Israel will not allow any of its foes in the Middle East to develop nuclear weapons. Both of us were very excited. WebThe Syrian Civil War is an ongoing violent conflict in Syria between pro-democratic insurgents and Syrian President Bashar al-Assads long-standing dynastic regime. Syria war: Why was Shayrat airbase bombed? - BBC News Before taking control, the Ba'ath Party gambled that it would be allowed to share power with Gamal Abdel Nasser in the United Arab Republic (UAR). [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. Olmert ordered the briefing of the United States concerning his decision to attack, which he was close to arriving at. The Syrian regime completed the destruction of the building. 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. The war is referenced in the famous US antiwar 1965 song "Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire with the line "And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin'". [27], The first act of the new rulers of Syria was to establish the twenty-man National Council for the Revolutionary Command (NCRC), composed of twelve Ba'athists and eight Nasserists and independents. In some public opinion polls, the level of support for the premier didnt rise above the single digits. F-15 pilot talks about striking the Syrian nuclear reactor. "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. [43] They were released exactly a year later and exiled,[44] after lobbying by Nasser and Iraqi President Abdul Salam Arif. Hezbollah accused Israel of the hit, but Israel never officially responded. WebUSS Shamal. That was marked as a point of no return, because an attack on a hot reactor was liable to cause tremendous environmental damage. 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 community that destroyed an atomic plant in northeastern Syria. Their mission this time was not to take down enemy aircraft. A large, cubical building that was still under construction in the heart of the Syrian desert, not far from Deir al-Zour, was a focus of the Israeli defense establishment starting from the end of 2006. 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. Capt Davis said they targeted "aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defence systems, and radars", describing them as "things that made the airfield operate". He succeeded in persuading Bush to halt the diplomatic move and to commit to preventing leaks. The operation was approved unanimously and at the armys recommendation the limited air attack option was chosen. The majority of Syrians continued to see themselves as Arabs rather than Syrians. The prime minister chose to ignore this suggestion. Trump: "Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children". An extensive process of preparation got underway in the IDF. [6] The opposition-run health directorate says at least 84 people died. And it was also the start of the intense hostility between that prime minister and his defense minister, which took root during that summer of 2007, and of the impassioned war over who among the top brass in the military organizations deserved the credit. Ultimately, however, the bombing of the reactor would not have happened without three people who believed in the mission and pushed the operation forward, unstintingly, throughout: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Israel Air Force commander Eliezer Shkedi., >> Ten years of silence on Syria strike. Middle East. Shallal However, that day the military intelligence raided the apartment where the plotters were planning to assemble. The initial diversion capacity of the National Water Carrier, without supplementary booster pumps, was 320 million m3, well within the limits of the Johnston Plan.
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