Israeli Strike Hit Syrian Chemical Weapons Facility

Israel's airstrike inside Syria just happens to have damaged the country's top chemical and biological research center, though it wasn't the primary target of the attack, US officials tell the New York Times. A senior military official said Israel's actual targets were trucks carrying missiles and antiaircraft weapons, which Israel feared were bound for Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. The research facility took damage from the bombs and "the secondary explosions from the missiles."

Outgoing Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak all but confirmed the attack yesterday, telling a conference in Munich that while he could not "add anything to what you have read in the newspapers," the attack was "another proof that when we say something we mean it." Meanwhile, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council issued a statement of support for Syria. Israel "will regret this recent aggression," he promised, according to Reuters. (More Syria stories.)