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Authenticated image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network. AP Photo

Israeli warplanes carry out Syrian airstrike

The attack targeted the delivery of Russian missiles with Israel worried repeatedly declaring it would intervene to stop Hezbollah receiving “game-changing” weapons.

ISRAELI WARPLANES ATTACKED a shipment of Russian missiles inside a Syrian government stronghold officials said yesterday in a development that threatened to add another volatile layer to regional tensions from the Syrian civil war.

The revelation came as the government of President Bashar al-Assad met a key deadline in an ambitious plan to eliminate Syria’s entire chemical weapons stockpile by mid-2014 and avoid international military action.

The announcement by a global chemical weapons watchdog that the country has completed the destruction of equipment used to produce the deadly agents highlights Assad’s willingness to cooperate, and puts more pressure on the divided and outgunned rebels to attend a planned peace conference.

An Obama administration official confirmed the Israeli airstrike overnight, but provided no details. Another security official said the attack occurred late on Wednesday in the Syrian port city of Latakia and that the target was Russian-made SA-125 missiles.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the attack. There was no immediate confirmation from Syria.

Since the civil war in Syria began in March 2011, Israel has carefully avoided taking sides, but has struck shipments of missiles inside Syria at least twice this year.

The Syrian military, overstretched by the civil war, has not retaliated, and it was not clear whether the embattled Syrian leader would choose to take action this time. Assad may decide to again let the Israeli attack slide, particularly when his army has the upper hand on the battlefield inside Syria.

Israel has repeatedly declared a series of red lines that could trigger Israeli military intervention, including the delivery of “game-changing” weapons to the Syrian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group.

Israel has never officially confirmed taking action inside Syria to avoid embarrassing Assad and sparking a potential response. But foreign officials say it has done so several times when Israeli intelligence determined that sophisticated missiles were on the move.

In January, an Israeli airstrike in Syria destroyed a shipment of advanced anti-aircraft missiles bound for Hezbollah, according to U.S. officials. And in May, it was said to have acted again, taking out a shipment of Iranian-made Fateh-110 missiles at a Damascus airport.

Read: Syria has destroyed all of its chemical weapons equipment – watchdog >

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266 Comments
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    Mute Brian Ward
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:32 PM

    That’s the problem with todays media reporting of live events, they are all so busy trying to get one up on the other channels that they don’t think for a minute about what they are saying. Imagine hiding out from some langer trying to kill you only for some idiot reporter to come on air and say “oh by the way there’s 4 hostages hiding out in the cold room”!

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    Mute Lad
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 8:58 PM

    If you can get your hands on “the human face of big data”, there’s an interesting piece on how terrorists use data and how in more prolific hostage taking countries it’s now quite common for live selected killings to take place using human search engines and media outlets for info. Or even waiting to carry out an attack to see who is in their area. Next gen terrorism. Off point but interesting.

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    Mute Avina Laaf
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    Apr 4th 2015, 12:28 AM

    Its not just a modern thing – during a ground stand-off following an aircraft hijacking (in the 1970′s I think) special forces had approached the plane via a blind spot to launch a surprise raid on the hijackers. Unfortunately events were being broadcast on live radio and the hijackers were listening in and knew exactly what was about to happen, with disastrous results.

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    Mute David Fitzpatrick
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    Apr 4th 2015, 1:35 AM

    Amen.
    What Globalist Murdoch said about the Sydney Siege comes to mind.
    Bloodthirsty vampire.
    http://www.thejournal.ie/murdoch-tweet-sydney-1836603-Dec2014/

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    Mute Paul Furey
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:33 PM

    Good move. Hopefully the media will cop on a bit more. If some aren’t making it up they are getting it all wrong.

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    Mute Brian Ward
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:37 PM

    Fox News springs to mind!

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    Mute jenni
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:32 PM

    About time the tv media were taken to task, imagine if that lunatic had been watching the live stream and did go down to the chiller they were hiding in…unthinkable acts would have ensued.
    In this day and age you would think tv news channels would have more cop on…but I suppose being more and more sensationalist is worth more than a life in this day and age. How many more lives would have been saved that day if that sick man was not put under the spotlight?
    Its sad really that there is an appetite for this sensationalism.

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    Mute Brian Ward
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:37 PM

    Apparently the gunman was watching but must have missed that report. The cop is to blame here as well as he shouldn’t have told the media anything in the first place. With today’s communications it would be easy for any gunman to have someone else watching TV, twitter etc and keeping them informed of what was going on. Best keep the media away from they area and in the dark until it’s all over.

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    Mute Al Ca
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 8:05 PM

    I wonder if that journalist would have been so eager to broadcast that information if one of his own relatives was hiding in that freezer?…..I think not…….which just goes to show how little empathy some journalists have with other people in deadly situations.

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    Mute brian magee
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 11:01 PM

    I wonder what nationality and religion the editor / producer : journalist are?

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    Mute Alan
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 8:40 PM

    It’s like that film Night Crawler. Ratings are worth more to these stations than human lives. Check it out. Jake Gyllenhaal is great in it.

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    Mute Rowan Murphy
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 9:15 PM

    I was thinking more about the reporter from Die Hard and Die Hard 2.

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    Mute miserable now.
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 9:20 PM

    Yes. Just what I was thinking. Great movie.
    Some of these”repoters” are sociopaths.

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    Mute Patrick J O'CONNOR
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 9:21 PM

    Look at the way they vilify Israel for its conduct in the war against Hamas terror,though experts in this field attest that Israel took the most extraordinary efforts to keep civilian casualties at a minimum while Hamas used its own people as shields in some cases. But vilifying Israel feeds the Jew-hatred and sells so ‘to hell with the facts go for what sells’.
    See excerpt from Colonel Kemp’s report
    –Three days ago I spoke to an Israeli pilot that told me that the same morning he had aborted an enemy target a total of 17 times because there were civilians in the target zone, and eventually he abandoned the operation. I asked him, was that not frustrating? His answer was simply no. And that to me, is one of the best things about the IAF – that the last very thing they want to do is bomb a target and have that on their conscience for the rest of their lives. And it was the same thing with infantry soldiers. I spoke to soldiers who have been fighting in Gaza, and several of them said to me: ‘We know what the rules of engagement are but even without them, it is always on our minds that we cannot kill civilians.’ See for them, this has nothing to do with orders, it’s just always there at the forefront. We’re talking about [reservists who are] simply artists, metal-workers, musicians, they are not killers. They have absolutely no desire to kill civilians. In fact, in terms of civilian casualties, the attitude of IDF solders is the exact mirror image of the way they’re portrayed to the world.
    http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/07/30/col-richard-kemp-israeli-pilot-aborted-gaza-strike-17-times-to-protect-civilians-jewish-people-should-be-proud-of-the-state-of-israel-interview/
    Happy Easter All!

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    Mute Elias Khoury
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 10:57 PM

    Truly and accurately stated. You’ll get red thumbs galore, no doubt, Patrick, but that just goes to show that many people don’t like the truth messing up their paradigm.

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    Mute Patrick J O'CONNOR
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    Apr 4th 2015, 2:11 AM

    @Elias Khoury! Thanks for Elias’ sentiment. Your prediction was so but not so bad and some of them even red-thumbed Elias to spite me.Laughable isn’t it!
    I worry not but to speak the truth as I see it. People have a very healthy scepticism about the newsmedia here and it’s just a matter of time before they cotton-on to the con-job the Hamas/PLO and other Jihadders have pulled on them via the self-seeking media.
    Additionally, Jew-hatred is on the wane however imperceptible it seems.
    Happy Easter…

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