Report: IDF Special Forces Destroy Iranian Missile Factory in Syria

According to a report in the news portal Axios on Thursday, the IDF's General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, one of the most elite commando units in the world, carried out an operation in Syria last Sunday to destroy an underground factory for precision missiles built by Iran. According to analysts quoted in the report, this is a serious blow to the Iranian project to arm Hezbollah and other regional proxies with precision guided missiles.

The Israeli goverment is adopting its usual policy of neither confirming or denying it carried out the operation.

However, the report in Axios, and widespread coverage of these events in other media portals, indicates that the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit approached their target under the cover of heavy air strikes carried out by fixed wing aircraft on various targets in western Syria, including near the city of Masyaf, close to the Lebanese border.

Rappelling to the ground from helicopters, the commandos then overwhelmed the Syrian Army forces guarding the facility before penetrating to its subterrenean levels, taking possesion of intelligence materials and then placing explosives to destroy the facility, which housed advanced, precision machinery, computers and other specialized equipment for the production of precision guided missiles.

The Axios report went on to explain that Iran, in cooperation with Hezbollah, began to build this facility inside a mountain in Masyaf in 2018, after an Israeli airstrike destroyed most of their above-ground missile production capacity in Syria. Their plan was to build the factory close to the Lebanese border in order to have a short line of supply to Hezbollah.