Satellite image analysis company ImageSat says attack attributed to Israel seems to have been pinpoint airstrike, targeting a small number of recently arrived components from Iran
An Israeli satellite imagery analysis firm on Tuesday determined that the target of an airstrike on a Syrian air base earlier this week, which was attributed to Israel, appeared to be an Iranian drone facility.
According to the company, ImageSat International, the attack late Sunday night appeared to be a pinpoint strike, targeting “one element or just a few elements” connected to Tehran’s unmanned aerial vehicle program in Syria, indicating that the components were of “particular importance.”
This assessment was based on satellite images of the targeted facility, the T-4 air base near Palmyra, from Tuesday. Comparing these photographs to ones from May 22, the private intelligence firm determined that the strike hit a small crop of buildings on the base.
The firm said that a number of cargo planes had recently landed at the base from Iran prior to the strike, indicating that they had delivered the equipment that was targeted.
“According to our assessment, it is reasonable that [the target] was a component [or components] connected to [Iran’s] UAV program,” ImageSat said in a statement.
Syrian state media said that Israel was behind the attack late Sunday night on the T-4 air base, which the Israel Defense Forces has bombed in the past and which Jerusalem has long claimed to be a facility used by Iran and its proxies.
In February 2018, the IDF bombed the T-4 air base after it said an Iranian soldier piloted an armed drone from there into Israeli airspace before it was shot down by an IDF helicopter.
The Israeli military refused to comment on Sunday’s strike. Israel generally acknowledges conducting operations in Syria, but refuses to take responsibility for particular attacks, with the exception of retaliatory strikes in response to attacks from Syria, as occurred on Saturday night.
Syrian military officials told the state media outlet SANA that the attack on the T-4 air base targeted and destroyed a weapons storage facility and several other buildings at the base.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported five people were killed, including one Syrian soldier. It said the attack also destroyed a rocket warehouse.
The attack came a day after the IDF carried out airstrikes on several military targets in Syria in the predawn hours of Sunday morning, reportedly killing 10 in response to two rockets that were fired from the country at the Golan Heights the night before.
Israeli defense officials have previously claimed the base is being used by Iranian forces as part of the Islamic republic’s efforts to entrench militarily in Syria, something Israel has vowed to prevent.
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