The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reportedly carried out a rare large-scale raid near the Syrian capital, Damascus.
IDF commandos destroyed Turkish spying equipment on a former Syrian military base in a two-hour-long raid. “An Israeli official confirmed that, during the recent operations in Syria, the military dismantled devices used by Turkey to spy on Israel,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
Drones and air support backed Israeli special forces during the overnight operation. “According to Syrian media, Israeli commandos landed by helicopter in al-Kiswah in the Damascus countryside and operated for more than two hours,” the Israeli news website Ynetnews reported Thursday. “The alleged raid, which Syrian sources say involved four helicopters and dozens of Israeli troops, appears to be a return—at least for now—to Israel’s former doctrine of plausible deniability.”
Since Islamist forces toppled the Iran-backed Assad regime in December 2024, Turkey has been trying to expand its sphere of influence in Syria. Turkey has been eyeing military bases and assets abandoned by the ousted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces. In April, the Israeli Air Force targeted Syrian military and airbases, which Turkey was planning to occupy.
The Israeli raid was reportedly concentrated at a former regime’s military base eight miles south of Damascus. The overnight operation came after two days of Israeli airstrikes on the army base, French news reports suggest.
A Syrian “defence ministry official told [the French news agency] AFP on condition of anonymity that at least three Israeli strikes targeted a former Syrian military base in Tal Maneh, near Kisweh,” France24 TV channel reported Tuesday.
Israeli fighter jets on Thursday hit Houthi targets in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, while terror chief, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, delivered a televised speech. “A short while ago, the IDF precisely struck a Houthi terrorist regime military target in the area of Sanaa in Yemen,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
The top leadership of the Iran-backed terrorist group was targeted in the airstrike. “Pro-Iranian media outlets reported more than 10 strikes in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital and a Houthi stronghold,” the Israel Hayom newspaper reported.
The Israeli daily cited a “[s]ecurity source” claiming that “[o]ne of the targets was a meeting of senior Houthi officials.”
The Israel National News/Arutz Sheva reported the details:
According to foreign reports, the strike targeted safe houses where senior Houthi officials were hiding. A defense official confirmed that several Houthi officials were meeting at the site that was targeted.Hezbollah affiliate al-Mayadeen reported over ten strikes in the capital.
On Sunday, the Israeli Air Force hit terrorist targets near the Houthi-controlled Presidential Palace in Sanaa, along with other terror sites in the capital. The strikes came two days after the Iranian proxy terror group fired a ballistic missile with cluster munitions at Israel.
The Houthis, whose slogan says: “Allah is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse upon the Jews, Victory to Islam,” declared war on Israel in November 2023, a month after Hamas’s October 7 massacre.
In the past 22 months, they have fired hundreds of missiles and drones aimed at Israeli towns and cities. They have been trying to impose an illegal maritime embargo on Israel, hijacking and sinking Western-owned cargo ships in the Red Sea.
Britain, France, and Germany have moved to impose ‘snapback’ sanctions on Iran after the regime recently refused to cooperate with the United Nations inspectors designated to monitor its nuclear facilities.
“France, Germany and the UK launched a 30-day process to reimpose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program on Thursday, sending a letter stating their intent to the UN Security Council,” Germany state-owned DW TV reported.
Tehran has been blocking the reentry of international inspectors since Israel and the US targeted its rogue nuclear weapons program during the 12-Day War two months ago.
The snapback sanction “will start on 18 October” when the Obama-era “nuclear deal signed in 2015 expires,” London-based The Guardian explained. “The move by the three European powers – known as the E3 – cannot be vetoed by permanent members of the UN security council such as Russia and China.”
The Associated Press reported:
France, Britain and Germany have initiated the process of triggering the “snapback mechanism” that automatically reimposes all United Nations sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, saying Iran has willfully departed from their 2015 nuclear deal that lifted the measures.The U.N. sanctions that were in effect before the 2015 deal included a conventional arms embargo, restrictions on ballistic missile development, asset freezes, travel bans and a ban on producing nuclear-related technology.The European countries, known as the E3, offered Iran a delay of the snapback during talks in July if Iran met three conditions: resuming negotiations with the United States over its nuclear program, allowing U.N. nuclear inspectors access to its nuclear sites, and accounting for the over 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium the U.N. watchdog says it has.Tehran, which now enriches uranium at near weapons-grade levels, has rejected that proposal. (…)Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action reached between world powers and Iran in 2015, Iran agreed to limit uranium enrichment to levels necessary for civilian nuclear power in exchange for lifted economic sanctions. The International Atomic Energy Agency was tasked with monitoring Iran’s nuclear program.The snapback mechanism’s purpose is to swiftly reimpose all pre-deal sanctions without being vetoed by U.N. Security Council members, including permanent members Russia and China.
European powers coordinated with the Trump administration before triggering the snapback mechanism. “The call between Rubio and his European counterparts was aimed at coordinating positions on “snapback” and the path forward on nuclear diplomacy with Iran, the sources said,” Axios reported Thursday.
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