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Dubai: Israelis launched a strike against "certain targets" in Syria last week, military experts confirmed yesterday but said the targets or Israel's intention behind the attack cannot be immediately specified.
"What we know [is that] it was a raid. It wasn't a fly-over ... it was a skirmish," Robin Hughes, Deputy Editor of Jane's Defence Weekly said in a telephone interview with Gulf News from London. However, "we can't confirm the targets of the raid at this precise moment," he added. "We don't know what the targets were nor what were the [Israeli] intentions," Hughes added.
Meanwhile, US officials confirmed reports that Israeli warplanes attacked targets in Syria on September 6, and one of them was quoted by Reuters as saying there was more than one strike. "The strike I can confirm. The target, I can't," the official said.
The New York Times reported yesterday that Israel believes Syria and Iran are buying nuclear material from North Korea and carried out reconnaissance flights over Syria.
Military experts in the region pointed to a possible Israeli intention behind the raid: an Israeli attempt to drag Iran into a conflict through attacking Syria.
Israel has declined to comment on the charge, and Syria on Tuesday lodged a formal complaint with the United Nations over the "flagrant violation" of its airspace on September 6, when it said its air defences opened fire on Israeli warplanes.
Commenting on the Israeli and Syrian silence on the developments, Hughes said: "It can be seen in terms of efforts not to escalate the already tense situation" in the region.
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