Satellite images show aftermath of raid in Assad Mesyaf missile facility

Satellite pictures released on Saturday (August 11) by an Israeli intelligence site appeared to show the aftermath of an airstrike on an Iranian-run missile production facility in Syria last month, an operation which has been attributed to Israel, The Times of  Israel paper said.  

The facility, in Mesyaf in northwestern Syria’s Hama countryside, was previously allegedly used to produce and store chemical weapons. It was run by Assad regime’s Dr. Aziz Asbar, a top Syrian chemical weapons and rocket scientist, who was killed earlier this month when his car exploded in Mesyaf. A senior official from a Middle East intelligence agency has pointed the finger at Israel’s Mossad for the alleged assassination, according to a New York Times report this week.

According to that report, Israel believed that Asbar was leading a classified weapons development program called Sector 4 at the Assad regime’s Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, and was busy re-building an underground weapons factory to replace the one said destroyed by Israel last year.

The satellite pictures were released Saturday by the Israeli website Intelli Times, and showed the facility both two days before the alleged attack on July 22 and in its aftermath. The facility was in charge of the production of the Assad versions of Iran’s Fateh 110 surface-to-surface missiles, which have a range of approximately 200 km, according to the report.