Revealed: How Iran took over Syria's secret missile production operation
Israel Hayom speaks with the people who seek to disrupt the development of sophisticated weapon systems in Syrian defense industries, which have a direct line of communication with the Revolutionary Guards.
It has become almost routine: Not a week goes by without some foreign media reporting on an alleged Israeli strike against Syria. Usually, these attacks are under the cover of darkness to help Israeli aircraft, but also so as to minimize the potential harm to non-combatants. But they do happen in broad daylight as well because sometimes the intelligence is actionable only if it is acted upon immediately or if it is determined that Syria would get the message much more resoundingly if it were carried out during the day.
The Israeli public has become used to these reports, some of which are no longer reported in the Israeli media or just get minimal coverage. But the other side is very much engaged on this issue. It is true for Syria, where the strikes take out many of its assets, and it is true for Iran, which is perhaps the only reason for Israel's intense involvement in the northern arena and in Syria in particular.
The main objective of these reported attacks is to frustrate Iran's entrenchment in Syria through the militias it trains and arms, as well as to interdict the weapon shipments to its proxies in the region – chiefly Hezbollah. These weapon deliveries are carried out in a two-pronged fashion. The first, using arms that are manufactured in Iran and then transported to Syria by air, land, or sea, and from there to Lebanon. Israel has reportedly attacked these routes hundreds of times in recent years: through targeting Iranian naval vessels or by hitting the long overland route stretching from Iran to Syria; as well as by attacking aircraft, airfields, and hangars where arms were stored after arriving from Syria via official or disguised flights.
The systematic attacks have cost Iran dearly and derailed its plans to arm Hezbollah with a massive amount of precision-guided munitions to the point it would have been able to set up a Hezbollah-like military force within Syria that would challenge Israel's security from the Golan Heights. In order to overcome the difficulties posed by these strikes, Iran has adopted an alternative method: using Syria's indigenous production capabilities for its own benefit, thus manufacturing the arms it needs or that its proxies in the region need. This has made the conveyance route shorter, and saved a lot of money in the process.
This has not been lost on Israel, and it has reportedly led to dozens of strikes against Syrian infrastructure and installations that are, according to foreign reports, under the auspices of The Scientific Studies and Research Center – Syrian military industries – better known for the French name Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Scientifiques. Defense Minister Benny Gantz hinted at this when he delivered a speech in New York recently in which he revealed that there are dozens of subterranean CERS centers that Syria has been using to manufacture advanced arms that could threaten Israel's security.
What he did not say in that speech, and which is now being revealed in this article, is that Iran has been engaged in this activity under Syria's nose, often without even coordinating it with the Syrian authorities. Senior members of the Revolutionary Guards have been paying CERS bigwigs and essentially have them work for Iranian projects to consolidate its presence on Israel's northern front.
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