{"id":247623,"date":"2021-12-29T08:58:14","date_gmt":"2021-12-29T08:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=247623"},"modified":"2021-12-30T06:49:16","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T06:49:16","slug":"israel-hits-syrian-port-for-second-time-this-month-syrian-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=247623","title":{"rendered":"Israel hits Syrian port for second time this month &#8211; Syrian army"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Introduction \u2013 Dec 28, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A video of Latakia Port during the IAF air strike tonight <br \/> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/RgIUuo1lbh\">pic.twitter.com\/RgIUuo1lbh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Intel Air &amp; Sea (@air_intel) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/air_intel\/status\/1475648979572604930?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 28, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The video footage above is impressive enough but by daylight it was clear that the Israeli Air Force hadn\u2019t hit a munitions storage facility, as the following Reuter\u2019s report suggests.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_247626\" style=\"width: 280px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Port-facilities-at-Latakia-still-smoulder-after-Israeli-air-strike-the-night-before.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-247626\" class=\"wp-image-247626\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Port-facilities-at-Latakia-still-smoulder-after-Israeli-air-strike-the-night-before.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"270\" height=\"360\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-247626\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A container yard at Latakia Port still smoulders after an Israeli air strike the night before. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Instead, Israel appears to have struck a freight handing yard with containers full of consumer goods.<\/p>\n<p>This was the second time this month that Israel struck the main port of Latakia. So even if Iran had been using the port as a transit point for weapons, the first raid served as a warning and it opted to use an alternative supply route.<\/p>\n<p>A close examination of photos of the targeted facility by daylight tends to reinforce Syrian claims that consumer goods were passing through the freight yard, not military hardware for Iran&#8217;s allies. For if it was being used as a transit point for weapons and munitions, as Israel claims, there would be much tighter security.\u00a0 Ed<\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Israel hits Syrian port for second time this month &#8211; Syrian army<\/strong><\/h1>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Reuters \u2013 Dec 28, 2021<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Israel launched an air strike on Syria&#8217;s main port of Latakia on Tuesday in the second such attack this month, the Syrian army said, setting ablaze the container storage area where two port sources said Iran has been storing munitions.<\/p>\n<p>An Israeli military spokesperson declined to comment saying: &#8220;We don&#8217;t comment on foreign reports.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Official Syrian reports made no mention of any casualties. A source familiar with the operations of the port said the strike hit a container area where large consignments of Iranian munitions that had arrived last month were stored.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These blasts and huge fires were caused by the explosions from the munitions stored in a warehouse close to commercial cargo,&#8221; the source who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>Syrian state news agency SANA quoted the head of the Latakia fire brigade as saying the containers targeted in the strike contained oils and spare parts for machines and cars.<\/p>\n<p>Israel has mounted frequent attacks against what it says are Iranian targets in Syria, where Tehran-backed forces led by Lebanon&#8217;s Hezbollah have deployed over the last decade in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria&#8217;s civil war.<\/p>\n<p>Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz, visiting an Israeli air-force base did not speak about the specific incident on Tuesday but warned his country would not allow Iran to use Syria to threaten Israel.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I call upon the region&#8217;s countries to stop Iran from violating their sovereignty and people. Israel will not allow Iran to funnel balance-breaching weapons to its proxies and threaten our citizens,&#8221; Gantz said.<\/p>\n<p>Another Syrian source familiar with Iranian military movements in Syria said Tehran had in recent months transferred weapons by sea as it sought to dodge intensified Israeli strikes that struck eastern Syria near a weapons supply corridor along the border with Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>The drone strikes disabled several large weapons convoys sent by Tehran from Iraq, he added in information confirmed by a Western intelligence source.<\/p>\n<p>Iran has expanded its military presence in Syria in recent years where it now has a foothold in most state-controlled areas where thousands of its militias and local paramilitary groups are under its command, Western intelligence sources say.<\/p>\n<p>Citing a military source, SANA said Israel had carried out the air strike targeting the container storage area at 3.21 a.m. (0121 GMT), causing a fire and leading to &#8220;big material damages&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Fire fighters were working to extinguish the blaze, it quoted the head of the Latakia fire brigade as saying. Syrian state TV footage showed flames and smoke in the container area.<\/p>\n<p>Citing its correspondent, state-run broadcaster al-Ikhbariya said a number of residential buildings, a hospital and a number of shops and tourist facilities had been damaged by the power of the blasts.<\/p>\n<p>Russia, which has been Assad&#8217;s most powerful ally during the war, operates an air base at Hmeimim some 20 kms (12 miles) away from Latakia.<\/p>\n<p>Reporting by Yasmin Hussein and Alaa Swilam in Cairo and Jeffrey Heller and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Writing by Alaa Swilam\/ Tom Perry\/ Suleiman al Khalidi; Editing by Michael Perry, Gareth Jones and Emelia Sithole-Matarise<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/syrian-air-defences-confront-israeli-aggression-latakia-port-syrian-state-tv-2021-12-28\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Did Israel strike an Iranian arms depot, or a freight yard full of consumer goods?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":247631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,37,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies","category-syria"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=247623"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247646,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247623\/revisions\/247646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/247631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=247623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=247623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=247623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}