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Thursday, April 27, 2017

The Damascus Attack

There is a large weapons depot on the outskirts of Damascus in Syria that was destroyed by an attack yesterday.  The depot was filled with Iranian weapons destined for Hezbollah.  There is no certainty in the reports of the attack as to what exactly was in that depot, but after the attack, large secondary explosions were observed.  These explosions indicate the presence of either large fuel storage tanks or, more likely, weapons containing explosives.  According to Syrian reports, no one was injured in the attack. 

The local reports blame Israel for the attack, but there is no proof of that.  It is true that Israel has said repeatedly that it will attack in Syria to prevent Iran from sending weapons to Hezbollah, but that is not enough to make this an Israeli attack.  As a matter of policy, the Israelis don't comment on events like this, so they are not about to admit responsibility for the attack.  Meanwhile, the Assad regime and the Iranians themselves are blaming the Israelis, but that too tells us little about what happened.  It is much better for Assad and his allies to blame Israel than to admit that a rebel group blew up a weapons depot.  Most likely, though, this was an Israeli attack, since rebels would not have cared about avoiding casualties.

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