Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Iran: Téhéran voit "une vraie possibilité" d'accord sur le nucléaire

"Je vais à Genève bien décidé à en repartir avec un accord. Je vois une vraie possibilité d'y parvenir", a déclaré à la presse Mohammad Javad Zarif, à l'issue d'un entretien avec son homologue italienne Emma Bonino.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Israël et l’Arabie saoudite s’allient contre l’Iran


Israël et l’Arabie saoudite s’allient contre l’Iran

Les services secrets israéliens (Mossad), élaborent avec l'Arabie saoudite un plan de crise pour attaquer l'Iran, écrit lundi le quotidien Nezavissimaïa gazeta:


"Il y a certainement beaucoup de discussions entre les deux pays en coulisses et des scénarios plausibles prévoyant un certain niveau de coopération entre les renseignements et dans le secteur opérationnel, explique Teodor Karassik de l'Institut d'analyse militaire au Moyen-Orient (INEGMA). Mais je ne pense pas qu’un scénario concret soit viable. Aucune préparation militaire n’est en cours. Le Conseil de coopération des Etats arabes du Golfe (CCG) est simplement en négociations avec Israël pour définir leur réaction aux décisions et accords du groupe 5+1.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Disarming Syria brings Israel’s suspected WMD arsenals into focus

...........................Now the Syrian government is suggesting it may not decommission its chemical weapons stockpiles unless its neighbors do likewise. 
“The main danger of WMD is the Israeli nuclear arsenal,” said Bashar Jaafari, Syria's ambassador to the UN, last Thursday, stressing that Israel also possesses chemical weapons but “nobody is speaking about that.” 
Such statements put the Syrian chemical weapons crisis into a new perspective. The US administration has for decades refused to discuss Israeli arsenals that allegedly contain nuclear warheads. By bringing the issue to an international discussion, Damascus might put the Obama administration into an awkward position. 
There has already been a reaction from Washington, when the State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said that the US will never accept attempts to compare Syrian regime with “thriving democracy” of Israel which “doesn't brutally slaughter and gas its own people,” she said. 
Traditionally, Israeli officials never comment on accusations that the country possesses WMD, pointing out that Israel lives under constant threats from Middle East countries such as Iran, Lebanon and Syria. 
Israel signed the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which came into force in 1997, but has never ratified it. It remains to be seen whether Tel Aviv will now ratify it, as well the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. 
“Some of these states don't recognize Israel's right to exist and blatantly call to annihilate it...These threats cannot be ignored by Israel, in the assessment of possible ratification of the convention,” the WDSJ reported Israeli government spokesman Jonathan Peled as saying. 

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

NSA 'routinely' shares Americans' data with Israel - Snowden leak

The NSA regularly shares raw US intelligence data with Israel without even removing information about American citizens, according to the latest revelation published by the Guardian. The report is based on a document leaked by Edward Snowden.
On Tuesday, September 11, the Guardian published a previously undisclosed document which revealed top-secret policies in place since 2009 that are used to share personal phone and Internet data pertaining to United States citizens with American ally Israel.
The document, a five-page memorandum authorized by the National Security Agency near the beginning of US President Barack Obama’s first administration, outlines a deal between the NSA and Israel’s SIGINT National Unit, or ISNU.
“This agreement,” the memo begins, “prescribes procedures and responsibilities for ensuring” privacy safeguards are implemented to protect the Fourth Amendment rights of US citizens with regards to the direct sharing of raw intelligence collected by the NSA with its Israeli counterpart.
That data, the document later explains, includes raw traffic picked up by the American spy office such as “unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence (DNI) metadata and content” which is never necessarily scrutinized by US officials before sent to Israeli agents.
“Seems the only info actually being ‘minimized’ is the info #NSA shares with the American public,” American Civil Liberties Union Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer tweeted following publication of the Guardian piece. “NSA is really good at minimizing that.".................. 

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

RT sources: Syrian rebels plan chem attack on Israel from Assad-controlled territories


A chemical attack may be launched on Israel by Syrian rebels from government-controlled territories as a "major provocation," multiple sources told RT.
The report comes as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrovproposed that Syria puts its chemical weapons arsenal under international control for subsequent destruction in order to prevent a possible military strike against the war-torn country.
Moscow also urged Syrian authorities to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The offer has already been passed over to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, who met Lavrov in Moscow for talks on Monday. 
“We don’t know if Syria will accept the offer, but if imposing international control over chemical weapons stored in the country can help to avoid military strikes, we are immediately going to start working with Damascus,” Lavrov said. 
The Syrian Foreign Ministry has welcomed Moscow's initiative, “based on the Syrian’s government care about the lives of our people and security of our country,” Muallem said later on Monday.  
Meanwhile, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice made a statement saying that Damascus' alleged "use of chemical weapons against its own people" posed a threat to US national security. “The use of chemical weapons also directly threatens our closest ally in the region, Israel,” she said, speaking at the New America Foundation in Washington. 

Thursday, August 22, 2013

VIDEO: Syria: Israel used depleted uranium shells in Syria strike


Israel used depleted uranium shells in the alleged strike in Syria on Sunday, a senior Syrian military source told Russia Today on Monday.


"When the explosion happened it felt like an earthquake, then a giant golden mushroom of fire appeared. This tells us that Israel used depleted uranium shells," the source said.



Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the production of enriched uranium for use in nuclear reactors. It is 2.5 times as dense as steel, which allows it to penetrate heavy protection. The material is known to be toxic, but not dangerously radioactive.



Thursday, August 15, 2013

Israeli govt to recruit students as undercover agents on social media

Israel is set to recruit students to work undercover in "covert units" at universities. The students will post messages on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on the Israeli government’s behalf – without identifying themselves as government agents.
The students participating in the project will be part of the public diplomacy arm of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s office. Leaders of the “covert units” will receive full scholarships in return for their online public diplomacy (hasbara). 

The Prime Minister’s Office is looking to invest up to 3 million shekels ($840,000) to recruit, organize and fund the activities of hundreds of university students, Haaretz reported. 

Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office told the newspaper that the main subjects that the campus-based units will deal with are diplomatic- and security-related issues, efforts to combat boycotts of Israel, anti-Semitism and the de-legitimization of Israel. The students will focus on Israel’s democratic values, freedom of religion, pluralism and “other subjects that give expression to the Israeli government’s public diplomacy policy.” 

A member of the Israeli Knesset, Dov Lipman, and the Prime Minister’s Office’s director for interactive media, Danny Seaman, revealed the new initiative during a meeting of the Knesset’s Diaspora Affairs Committee last month. 

The Prime Minister’s Office is planning to have Israel's student union recruit up to 550 students with knowledge of foreign languages from Israel’s seven universities. The student union is to publicize the project among tens of thousands of students, and is to provide computers and work space for a project headquarters at all university campuses. 

“With social media, you can’t wait,” an unnamed official involved in the effort told the Jerusalem Post. 

“We will get authoritative information out and make sure it goes viral,” the official said. “We won’t leave negative stories out there online without a response, and we will spread positive messages. What we are doing is revolutionary. We are putting public diplomacy in the hands of the public.”

AFP Photo / Fred Tanneau
AFP Photo / Fred Tanneau

The covert units will be set up at each university and structured in a semi-military fashion. While groups will take directions from staff at the Prime Minister’s Office, the government says that officially they will be politically independent. 

“The idea requires that the state’s role not be highlighted and therefore it is necessary to insist on major involvement by the students themselves without any political link [or] affiliation,” Seaman said. 

Leaders of covert units will receive full scholarships from the Prime Minister’s Office, which will fund a total of 2.78 million shekels ($780,000) in scholarships for the program in the upcoming academic year, Haaretz reported. 

“The national public diplomacy unit in the PMO places an emphasis on social network activity,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. “As part of this, a new pro-Israel public diplomacy infrastructure of students on Israeli campuses is being established that will assist in advancing and disseminating content on the social networks, particularly to international audiences.” 

According to details provided to Israeli media, a government liaison officer for Israel advocacy will oversee the dissemination of “rapid responses” from Israeli officials to respond to news events, and coordinate with other government bodies that deal with public diplomacy, including the Israeli Defense Force. 

The IDF has recently asserted a stronger, at times controversial presence on social media with mixed results. The new program may well seek to address perceived deficiencies in the way that Israel communicates with the world online.   

Last year, during Israel’s eight-day Operation Pillar of Defense, an incursion launched into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in response to rocket attacks, the Palestinian group was widely seen as having won the war of words on online media. 

Haaretz reported that in the fallout of the military operation, the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack with 170,000 mentions easily surpassed Israel’s own #IsraelUnderFire, with a comparably meager 25,000 mentions. 

"The perception dominating the online discourse was that the IDF had embarked on an unjustified attack,”said Tomer Simon, an Israeli researcher who studied social networking activity during the conflict. 

Monday, July 15, 2013

‘More vulnerable’ Israel may act before US on Iran - Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that Iran is moving “closer and closer” to building a nuclear weapon and warned that his county may take action against the Islamic Republic before the US acts.
Netanyahu told CBS News that Iran is “edging up to the red line. They haven't crossed it yet…” but “they have to be told in no uncertain terms that that will not be allowed to happen."
Netanyahu stressed that Israel was not willing to wait as long as the US to take action against Iran’s nuclear program.
"Our clocks are ticking at a different pace. We're closer than the United States. We're more vulnerable. And therefore, we'll have to address this question of how to stop Iran, perhaps before the United States does,"Netanyahu said.
He explained that Tehran was building centrifuges at an accelerated pace, and that they may be nuclear-ready “within a few weeks.”
Netanyahu’s fear is that Iran’s policies would not change under new leadership of the moderate cleric and former nuclear negotiator Nassan Rowhani, who is to be sworn in as president on August 3.
"He's criticizing his predecessor [President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] for being a wolf in wolf's clothing. His strategy is to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. Smile and build a bomb,” he said, urging the US to warn Rowhani that it will not allow any further nuclear activity to go on unpunished.................

RT source: Israeli strike on Syria was carried out from Turkish base

Edited time: July 15, 2013 06:29


News that Turkey assisted Israel in attacking another Muslim state could result in serious turmoil for Ankara, once the information is confirmed. Israel used a Turkish military base to launch one of its recent airstrikes against Syria from the sea, a reliable source told RT. Israel has been under scrutiny since last week, when it was reported to be responsible for a July 5 depot attack in Latakia.

"Our source is telling us that Israeli planes left a military base inside Turkey and approached Latakia from the sea to make sure that they stayed out of Syrian airspace so that they cannot become a legitimate target for the Syrian air force," RT's Paula Slier reports. 
Relations between Turkey and Israel were strained until March 2013, as a result of a flotilla incident which happened more than three years ago. In protest against Israel’s refusal to apologize, Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador and severed military ties.
The two agreed to normalize their relationship after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Ankara has been known for its assistance to foreign-backed militants, allowing them to train on Turkish territory before infiltrating into Syria. 
Shortly after the July 5 airstrike, the Free Syrian Army said that rebels were not responsible for the attack, which destroyed Yakhont anti-ship missiles being stored there.
"It was not the FSA that targeted this," Qassem Saadeddine, FSA’s Supreme Military Council spokesman told Reuters. "It is not an attack that was carried out by rebels.”
A general view of the port of Syria's Mediterranean city of Latakia (Reuters / Khaled Al Hariri)
A general view of the port of Syria's Mediterranean city of Latakia (Reuters / Khaled Al Hariri)

The FSA suggested the attack “was either by air raid or long-range missiles fired from boats in the Mediterranean.”
Rebels described massive blasts, saying that the firepower exceeded the capability of weapons available to the opposition. They speculated that the attack was launched with the use of modern military weapons, like those which may be possessed by Israel.....................

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Israel a la pointe du progres : la bombe israelienne plus forte que les S-300 russes !

La societe 'Rafael' a devoile la 'Spice 250', capable de contourner le systeme de defense aerien russe, dont le transfert a la Syrie inquiete Israel et ses allies. La 'Spice 250' peut atteindre des cibles jusqu'a 100 km de distance.

מטוס אף-16 יודע לשאת 16 פצצות. ה
Bombes 'Spice-250'

Le systeme de defense aerien 'S-300', qui est cense etre livre a la Syrie par la Russie dans le cadre d'une vente d'armes entre les deux pays, preoccupe ces derniers mois tout le Proche-Orient, et une partie des pays occidentaux. Sur fond de crainte d'atteinte de l'efficacite de l'armee de l'air israelienne dans la region, le fabricant israelien d'armes sophistiquees 'Rafael' a devoile dans le stand israelien du salon du Bourget plusieurs nouvelles technologies, dont la bombe de type 'Spice-250' qui est censee repondre aux systemes de defense aeriens comme le 'S-300' russe.

Il s'agit d'une petite bombe intelligente de la famille 'Spice-1000' et 'Spice-2000'. La 'Spice-250' pese 150 kilos, elle est equipee d'un moteur qui sera operationnel dans 2 ans, elle a des ailes qui se deploient comme un avion de chasse et est capable d'atteindre des cibles jusqu'a 100 km de distance.......................................

Monday, June 10, 2013

Dossier: Situation politique en Syrie S-300

Israël cherchera à neutraliser les missiles russes S-300 qui doivent être livrés à Damas avant leur mise en service opérationnel, a estimé l'expert de l'Institut pour le Proche-Orient basé à Washington Wayne White.
"Les livraisons de missiles russes S-300 en Syrie, qui font actuellement l'objet d'un vaste débat public, peuvent ne pas exercer un impact à long terme sur l'équilibre des forces dans la région. (…) Si les Syriens reçoivent de tels systèmes, Israël ne tardera pas à les attaquer et à les détruire", a indiqué le chercheur dans une interview accordée à RIA Novosti.
"En fait, ces missiles pourraient être détruits bien avant être mis en service", a expliqué l'interlocuteur de l'agence.
Toujours selon M.White, Israël estime que les S-300 fournis à Damas pourraient le rendre incapable d'empêcher les livraisons d'armes modernes en provenance de la Syrie au mouvement chiite libanais Hezbollah.






Selon Moscou, les livraisons de missiles S-300 en Syrie constituent un "facteur stabilisateur" et empêche une ingérence militaire extérieure dans le conflit auquel ce pays est en proie. Pour sa part, le ministre israélien de la Défense Moshé Yaalon a déclaré que son pays "saurait quoi faire" si la Russie livrait des systèmes S-300 à la Syrie.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

US discloses Israel’s top-secret military base outraging Tel-Aviv

An Arrow II battery, a U.S.-backed Israeli missile shield, is seen at Palmachim base, south of Tel Aviv May 29, 2013.(Reuters / Amir Cohen)
An Arrow II battery, a U.S.-backed Israeli missile shield, is seen at Palmachim base, south of Tel Aviv May 29, 2013.(Reuters / Amir Cohen)Share on tumblr

Israel has turned to the US government with its plans to build a state-of-the-art facility to host the new ballistic-missile defense system, the Arrow 3, McClatchy's Washington Bureau reports.
 The US government has inadvertently revealed the details of a top-secret Israeli missile base in published bid requests, leaving military officials in Tel-Aviv in the state of shock.

In accordance with its usual procedure, the US Defense Department has published the details of the $25 million project on a federal business opportunities website so that contractors could bid on it. 

Over 1,000 pages of specifications included a thorough description of the future base from the depth of the underground complex to building materials to be used in construction. 

The information on the facility at Tel Shahar is classified in Israel, with the local military even refusing to officially confirm its location between the cities of Jerusalem and Ashdod. 

"If an enemy of Israel wanted to launch an attack against a facility, this would give him an easy how-to guide. This type of information is closely guarded and its release can jeopardize the entire facility," an unnamed Israeli military official commented, refusing to say if the plans for the base will be altered as a result of the disclosure.

"This is more than worrying, it’s shocking," he added. 

An Israeli Air Force Sikorsky CH-53 helicopter lands in the Tel Nof air base in central Israel.(Reuters / Baz Ratner)
An Israeli Air Force Sikorsky CH-53 helicopter lands in the Tel Nof air base in central Israel.(Reuters / Baz Ratner)


According to the bid requests, the Arrow 3 system will include six interceptor missiles in vertical launch positions to be placed at the base, with a gantry crane to be erected for further missiles. 

High-grade concrete reinforced with steel mesh grids will be used to build the structures encasing the interceptor system, which will have steel blast doors and a system to protect electrical wiring from the pressure during the launch. 

The Arrow 3 is a defense system designed to intercept ballistic missiles outside the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s expected to become operational in 2015-16 to tackle possible threats from the nuclear weapon program developed by neighboring Iran. 

"We're thinking mostly about the nuclear threat," Col. Aviram Hasson, who heads the Arrow 3 project, is cited as saying by UPI.com. "We want to reach a situation in which Israel has a ready defense for any threat, present or future." 

Earlier, the head of the bidding process at Israel’s Defense Ministry, Lt. Col. Peleg Zeevi, told Reuters that the project was given to the Americans as the IDF needed “a player that has the knowledge, ability and experience” in the field. 

Since 1998, the US had built military facilities worth $500 million for the Israeli army, which, according to Zeevi, was “aware of the security issues that arise in deals with foreign firms.” But it seems that the scale of the disclosure of a top-secret facility was too much to handle for the Israeli officials. 


Monday, May 20, 2013

Tirs sur une patrouille israélienne à la frontière syrienne

Dans la nuit de dimanche à lundi des militaires israéliens en patrouille le long de la frontière israélo-syrienne sur le plateau du Golan ont été pris à partie par des tirs en provenance de Syrie.

http://french.ruvr.ru/2013_05_20/Des-tirs-sur-une-patrouille-militaire-israelienne-a-la-frontiere-syrienne/

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Russia suspects international PR to justify use of force in Syria intervention


There are signs that the international public opinion is being prepared for the possibility of intervention with force in the Syrian crisis, the Russian Foreign Ministry holds.
“Moscow is concerned by the signs of preparing the public opinion in the world to the possibility of intervention using force into the lingering internal conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic,” reads Monday statement by the ministry’s spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich.
He also noted that the situation in Syria and around aggravated sharply in past few days.
“A lot of reasoning appeared in a number of Arab and other international mass media regarding the use of chemical weapons in the standoff between the government forces and the opposition guerillas,” Lukashevich warned.
The Russian side again drew the attention of the international community to the statement made by Carla Del Ponte, a member of the independent commission for investigation of human rights abuse in the republic. Del Ponte claimed that the UN expert possessed some data that could testify for the possible use of chemical weapons by anti-Assad rebels and not the government troops.
“From our side we persistently call to stop the politicizing of this exceptionally serious issue and the inflating of the anti-Syrian atmosphere ,” Lukashevich emphasized.
He added that Moscow deemed unacceptable the postponing of the reaction to the address of the Syrian government to the United Nations regarding the reported use of chemical weapons by armed units of the opposition in the settlement of Khan al-Asal on March 19 this year.
The Russian representative also expressed particular concern over the Israeli airstrikes on targets near Damascus on May 3 and May 5. The Russian side is verifying and analyzing all circumstances connected with this dangerous development, he said.
Russia warned that the continuing inflating of armed confrontation would sharply increase the risks that new hotbeds of tension would appear not only in Syria, but also in Lebanon and in the relatively calm region around the Israeli-Lebanon border.
Lukashevich again underlined that the international community must join efforts and return the events in Syria to the peaceful course.
“Russia is doing everything in its power and counts on a similar approach from all other nations that are capable of influencing the different sides in Syrian conflict,” he said.
Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov also raised the question of the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria and the reaction of the international community.
"The UN special commission believes that chemical weapons in Syria could have been used by the armed opposition. The conclusion was based on witnesses’ accounts," Gatilov tweeted. He claims this fact proves the need for an independent expert examination of what happened in Aleppo in April.
Also on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed international efforts to settle the Syrian crisis with Lakhdar Brahimi, the envoy to this country from the United Nations and the Arab League. According to the Foreign Ministry, the two officials discussed the arrangement of efficient international mediation, including with the use of UN mechanisms, to help settle the crisis in Syria through urgent implementation by all parties of the Geneva accords of June 30, 2012.
Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday afternoon that the Russian president had a telephone conversation with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and the two officials discussed the situation in the Middle East and the state of events around Syria.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Raid israélien sur Damas : près de 300 morts


сирия дамаск взрыв дым заминированный атомобиль
Photо: EPA
Environ 300 soldats ont été tués dans un raid aérien israélien sur la banlieue de Damas, des centaines de personnes ont été blessées, selon le portail Damas Post en référence à ses propres sources.

La frappe a été réalisée contre des districts de la banlieue de Damas, où deux brigades de la Garde présidentielle étaient cantonnées . En outre, les entrepôts d'armes et le centre de recherches militaires de Jamraya ont été également attaqués.

Le vice- ministre syrien des Affaires étrangères Faisal Mekdad a qualifié cette frappe aérienne israélienne de déclaration de guerre. T

‘Containing Iran’: Israel ‘in talks’ to join alliance with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey


Israel is considering partnering with several moderate Arab states in a US-brokered defense alliance that would be aimed at containing Iran, which is accused of nuclear weapon ambitions, a British newspaper reported Sunday.
The alliance would see Israel teaming up with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to forge a Middle East ‘moderate crescent’ to contain, rather than confront, Iran, the Sunday Times reported, citing an unnamed Israeli official.
According to the report, such an alliance would give Israel access to radar stations in Saudi Arabia and the UAE in exchange for its own early warning radar information and anti-ballistic missile defense systems, the source said.
In addition to US-made Patriot anti-missile systems, Israel has deployed the Iron Dome all-weather defense system, although this system guards against rockets fired from distances of 4 to 70km away.
The report suggested that Jordan would be protected by Israel’s Arrow long-range anti-missile batteries.
“The plan is to start with information-sharing about Iran’s ballistic missiles,” said an Israeli official.
The proposal, known by participating diplomats as ‘4+1’, is being brokered by the United States. If successful, it would represent a marked shift in Middle East policy at the White House, which in the past has said it is not interested in containing Iran, but rather preventing it from achieving nuclear weapon capability.
However, Turkey has dismissed the report. “These are manipulative reports which have nothing to do with the reality,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry official told Hürriyet Daily News.
Tehran denies it is attempting to build a nuclear weapon, saying that its nuclear research is aimed at creating new energy resources for its civilian sector.
The prospects for the plan’s success, however, remain questionable as Israel does not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, while relations with Ankara have been rather strained for the last several years.
Relations between Israel and Turkey sharply deteriorated following the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid, which left eight Turkish nationals dead after their ship attempted to break an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip.
In March 2013, Israel apologized for the raid on the Turkish vessel, which observers say represents a step toward the normalization of relations between the two countries.
The Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Jordan, not to mention Israel and the United States, are all wary of Shiite Tehran gaining any strategic advantage in the region, a factor that may compel the Arab states and Israel to put aside their differences and join some sort of alliance.

‘Israel used depleted uranium shells in air strike’ – Syrian source


Israel used "a new type of weapon", a senior official at the Syrian military facility that came under attack from the Israeli Air Force told RT.
“When the explosion happened it felt like an earthquake,” said the source, who was present near the attack site on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday morning.
“Then a giant golden mushroom of fire appeared. This tells us that Israel used depleted uranium shells.”
Depleted uranium is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process that creates nuclear weapons, and was first used by the US in the Gulf conflict of 1991. Unlike the radioactive materials used in nuclear weapons, depleted uranium is not valued for its explosiveness, but for its toughness – it is 2.5 times as dense as steel – which allows it to penetrate heavy protection.
Countries using depleted uranium weapons insist that the material is toxic, but not dangerously radioactive, as long as it remains outside the body.
The source also claims the attack – if it managed to hit the objects it targeted – served more of a political than a military purpose.
“Several civilian factories and buildings were destroyed. The target was just an ordinary weapons warehouse. The bombing is an ultimatum to us – it had no strategic motivation.”
Western intelligence sources told the media that the strikes targeted transfers of weapons from the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which is sympathetic to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The official who spoke to RT denies this.
“There was no valuable equipment at the site. It was all removed after a previous attack on the facility. The military losses from this are negligible.”