Jerusalem: Israel’s military revealed that around 100 of its troops conducted a raid in Syria in September last year to dismantle an underground missile factory allegedly funded by Iran.
In a rare admission of its activities in Syria, the military confirmed in a statement that the September 8 operation targeted and “destroyed an underground compound for manufacturing precision missiles” in the Masyaf area, near Syria’s Mediterranean coast, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Israeli military claimed that the facility housed “advanced assembly lines designed to manufacture precision-guided missiles and long-range rockets.” These weapons, it said, would have significantly bolstered supplies to Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups in the region.
The operation involved a coordinated assault by helicopters, drones for intelligence support, fighter jets, and naval vessels. Israeli forces destroyed the facility, seizing equipment, weapons, and intelligence documents. These materials were brought back to Israel for further analysis. No Israeli troops were injured in the raid.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported in September that the raid resulted in 27 fatalities.
Since the onset of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out numerous strikes in the country, claiming to target Iranian-linked sites and weapon shipments to Hezbollah.
In December, Israeli troops entered a United Nations-monitored buffer zone in the Golan Heights and seized Syrian territory in the area. The move drew widespread international condemnation. Israel described the incursion as temporary and defensive.