The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) successfully executed a daring raid earlier this week in Syria that destroyed a sophisticated underground missile factory built by the Islamic Republic of Iran that was being used to supply Hezbollah, Iran’s top terror proxy group, with countless precision medium-range missiles.
Axios reported that the “highly unusual raid” was carried out by the Israeli Air Force’s (IAF) elite Shaldag unit, the first known ground operation that Israel has carried out on Syrian soil in years.
The report said that the destruction of the facility was “a significant blow to an effort by Iran and Hezbollah” to produce missiles used to attack Israel.
The raid happened in the western part of Syria, near the border of Lebanon, while the IAF conducted an intense bombing campaign to stop the Syrian military from being able to send reinforcements to respond to Israel’s operation at the factory.
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Israel notified the U.S. of the raid in advance and received no opposition to launching the operation, the report said.
The Syrian guards who were protecting the terrorist manufacturing facility were caught off guard by the raid and killed by the Israeli commandos’ surprise attack.
The commandos destroyed the underground facility and all of its “sophisticated machinery” using explosives that they brought with them.
U.S. and Israeli sources confirmed to the publication that Iran started building the underground facility in 2018 in coordination with Hezbollah and the Syrians after Israel “destroyed most of the Iranian missile production infrastructure” inside the country.
Israeli intelligence services reportedly monitored the site, built inside of a mountain, for five years. Israel previously considered launching an operation to destroy the site but deemed the project too “high-risk.”
The raid could foreshadow how Israel might deal with Iran’s nuclear facilities as the country gets closer to obtaining nuclear weapons, partly due to a lack of deterrence from the Biden-Harris administration, some experts say.
