Looks like Israel crashed a party…….

crosspatch on September 14, 2007 at 12:09 PM

And the IRG walks away as the Kurds get the blame….nice.
Fake with the left and jab with the right.

Anybody who thinks he didn’t have ‘em, read “Saddam’s Secrets” by Georges Sada.

Could the airstrike be hitting the WMD’s that were rumored to be moved out of Iraq before the invasion and IDF caught wind of a Hezbo attack using them? Bomb site was very close to the Syria/Iraqi border and the MSM is not reporting this at all.

Just a thought.

There are many types of facilities associated with nuclear technoligies, apart from more mundane things as well – such as perhaps storage facilities for materials, maybe even storage for radioactive materials like those that may be used in dirty bombs, all these things would fall under the header of nuclear related facilities.

If you look at Osirak when it was hit the comlex had sprawled out with ancillary facilities.

If you look at Natanz in Iran as well, one can see there are many many facilities involved. As others have pointed out here in Israel it was widely reported saddam was moving WMD to Syria before the war, perhaps Syria again chose to serve as storehouse for something nuclear ‘related’ that might need to be hit to preserve our security.

We originally thought it was a whole lot of nothing. Then we were kind of persuaded by the theory that Barak is in the process of reminding Israel’s enemies that the IDF can drop troops – or bombs – whereever……

It was the Turks who gave the Jews from Spain a home during the Spanish Inquisition.

crosspatch on September 14, 2007 at 12:26 AM

Also, Turkey was neutral in WWII and allowed Jews passage to escape the Nazis. That’s got to count for a lot in Israel’s thinking. However, there was one incident where a boat with 762 Jewish refugees sank off of Turkey because no country would allow them to disembark. All but 1 died in that. There have also been pogroms and taxes, and so after centuries of welcoming Jews, only 26,000 Jews live in Turkey now.

crosspatch on September 14, 2007 at 12:26 AM

Interesting tidbit!

crosspatch on September 14, 2007 at 12:23 AM

but not from Syria……interest-ink!

Perhaps the attempted bombing was a Syrian false flag operation intended to dissuade the Turks from getting too cozy with the Israelis.

The Shahab-3 (Persian: شهاب-3, meaning “Meteor-3″) is a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) developed by Iran and based on the Nodong-1. An early variant could fly 1,300 km; a later one may reach nearly 2,100 km. It was tested from 1998 to 2003 and added to the military arsenal on July 7, 2003, with an official unveiling by Ayatollah Khamenei on July 20.

The forerunners to this missile include the Shahab-1 and Shahab-2. The then-Iranian Defense Minister Admiral Shamkhani has denied that Iran plans to develop a Shahab-4.

The Shahab-3 was first seen in public on September 25, 1998, in Azadi Square, Tehran in a parade held to commemorate the Iranian Sacred Defence Week.

Iran has conducted at least six test flights of the Shahab 3. During the first one, in July 1998, the missile reportedly exploded in mid-air during the latter portion of its flight; U.S. officials wondered whether the test was a failure or the explosion was intentional. A second, successful test took place in July 2000. In September 2000, Iran conducted a third test, in which the missile reportedly exploded shortly after launch. In May 2002, Iran conducted another successful test, leading then-Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani to say the test improved the Shahab-3′s “power and accuracy.” Another successful test reportedly occurred in July 2002. On July 7, 2003, the foreign ministry spokesman said that Iran had completed a final test of the Shahab 3 “a few weeks ago” that was “the final test before delivering the missile to the armed forces,” according to a New York Times report.

On November 9, 2004, Shamkhani said Iran could mass-produce the missile.

On November 2, 2006, Iran fired unarmed missiles to begin 10 days of military war games. Iranian state television reported “dozens of missiles were fired including Shahab-2 and Shahab-3 missiles. The missiles had ranges from 300 km to up to 2,000 km…Iranian experts have made some changes to Shahab-3 missiles installing cluster warheads in them with the capacity to carry 1,400 bombs.” These launches come after some United States-led military exercises in the Persian Gulf on October 30, 2006, meant to train for blocking the transport of weapons of mass destruction [1].

Good Grief!! The Iranian Shahab-3 can easily reach Israel.

From Iran, just barely, I believe. From Syria, yes. An Iranian missile launched from Syria could reach any part of Israel. And as you can see from this article from 2005 the NorKs were helping Iran in missile basing and technology as well. You might note the presence of Iranian “technicians” observing Korean missile tests in various news reports over the years too.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/missile.htm

sorry forgot the link

Here is Global Security on Iranian/NK missles and inventory…

longest….3000km/1900 miles….so I guess the answer is yes.

The way I fig’er it: nothing that Iran has done in terms of its nuclear development at its nuclear sites have required similar air strikes from Israel. That means Israel was more nervous about nuke development in Syria than it is about Iran (at least, as of last week). Add to this Turkish involvement, and it is beginning to look like something really big was destroyed by the IAF last week.

Weight of Glory on September 13, 2007 at 9:46 PM

Thanks guys for the background information.

I thought Limerick and JiangxiDad contributed some informative comments that helped me understand the situation better.

Question:

Has Iran developed the long-range delivery system capable of firing missiles at Israel?

The last I checked, they haven’t. However, if the answer is yes, I wonder if that info played any part in the Israeli-Turkish military strike?

And how is it that no one heard of this rather significant advance in Syrian special weapons production until the IAF raid that allegedly took them out?

I did. As I said on a previous post Melanie Phillips wrote about the revelation of Syria’s nuclear program months ago. It largely passed under the MSM radar and even the blogosphere’s radar so it seems. There is also tons of circumstansial evidence that Saddam sent his WMDs Syria’s way.