Syria: Deadly Air Strikes Target Center That Reportedly Develops Unconventional Weapons
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Israel is understood to have been behind Sunday night’s air strikes on a target in Syria which experts believe is used to develop unconventional weapons and missiles, the New York Times reports. At least 18 people were killed and dozens injured according to Syria’s state media.
Although Syria blames Israel for the attacks, the Israeli government has neither confirmed nor denied carrying out the strikes which hit targets in and around the town of Masyaf in northwestern Syria, NYT reports.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told NYT that the strikes targeted the Scientific Studies and Research Center, where work on “developing short- and medium-range precision missiles” is conducted.
“Independent experts, Israeli officials and the U.S. government have described that institute as a center of weapons research and development, aided by Syria’s ally Iran, with the work being done there including chemical, biological and potentially nuclear weapons as well as missiles used by Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed militia group in Lebanon that is fighting Israel,” the NYT said in its report.
United States citizens have been banned by the US government from doing business with the center since 2005, NYT reports. In 2007 the US Treasury Department then went on to freeze the assets of center subsidiaries, listing the S.S.R.C. as the “Syrian government agency responsible for developing and producing nonconventional weapons and the missiles to deliver them,” NYT added.