At least 18 people were killed in the raid in Masyaf, western Syria, in early September [Getty]
Israel has admitted that its special forces were behind the destruction of an Iranian weapons factory in western Syria in September for the first time.
The operation targeted an underground missile manufacturing facility in Masyaf, a town close to the Lebanese border in western Syria, resulting in the deaths of 18 people and injuring dozens. Unconfirmed US reports at the time had suggested that Israel had been behind the attack.
Israel had kept silent on the subject until this week when The Times of Israel published details of the operation as revealed to it by Israeli defence officials.
The hour-long raid, code-named Operation Deep Layer, was conducted on 8 September by special forces in the Israeli Air Force’s elite Shaldag unit, who rappelled into the facility via helicopters and destroyed it using remote explosives.
The Israeli army had monitored the site for more than five years and had made several unsuccessful attempts to destroy it with airstrikes.
Iran was thought to be using the facility, known as the Scientific Studies and Research Centre (CERS), to produce missiles for its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iranian weapons development experts were reportedly stationed at the site and are thought to have been manufacturing precision-guided warheads and drones.
The raid came following months of tit-for-tat exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel and occurred just days before the pager attacks that targeted thousands of the Shia group’s operatives and triggered a severe escalation in the conflict.
Since Iran’s intervention in the Syrian civil war over a decade ago, the Assad regime had allowed it to manufacture heavy weaponry and station thousands of military personnel on its soil, inviting regular air strikes by the Israeli military.
The Israeli Air Force had escalated its attacks on Iranian assets in Syria following the eruption of its conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah, and last year struck hundreds of targets across the country.
Iran suffered a major setback in Syria last month when Assad was overthrown by Islamist rebels, and was forced to withdraw from its bases and evacuate its personnel from the country.
In the days following Assad’s ouster and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s ascent to power, Israel stepped up its bombing campaign in the country and destroyed hundreds of Syrian military assets. It also seized the buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights.
The details of the Israeli operation were reported in September by The New York Times and Axios, which cited anonymous US and Western officials.
