Israel’s Army Radio reported Thursday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began preparing plans for Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear sites after destroying nearly 90% of Syria’s air defense capabilities, which had formerly protected Iran.
Army Radio military correspondent Doron Kadosh reported on air that Israel had destroyed 86% of Syria’s surface-to-air missile capability, among 500 other sites that the IDF had targeted since the fall of the Assad regime Sunday.
Kadosh elaborated, in a post on X, that Israel had used 1800 munitions in the attack on Syrian weapons — munitions that had been intended for other purposes, but were switched to the new mission once the fall of the regime began.
He added that the plans for striking the Syrian military had only been drawn up two days before the regime fell, and were only improved at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, just a few hours after Assad had fled the capital, Damascus.
Now, he said, with a “clear axis to Iran,” Israel’s military and intelligence officials were preparing operational plans for an attack on the regime’s nuclear facilities. The decision to launch a strike would be left to elected political leaders.
Separately, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the scale of its destruction of Syria’s defenses in a statement:
In recent weeks, the IDF, led by the Intelligence Directorate, has been conducting a comprehensive situational assessment regarding the internal situation in Syria. In anticipation of the potential collapse of the Assad regime, the Israeli Air Force prepared an extensive strike plan to eliminate advanced military capabilities in Syria, including strategic weapons.
In recent days, hundreds of Israeli Air Force fighter jets and aircraft inflicted severe damage on Syria’s most strategic weapons: fighter jets and helicopters, Scud missiles, UAVs, cruise missiles, surface-to-sea precision-guided missiles, surface-to-air missiles, surface-to-surface missiles, radars, rockets, and more.
The majority of the strikes severely damaged Syria’s aerial defense systems, destroying over 90% of the identified strategic surface-to-air missiles. Syria’s aerial defense network is among the strongest in the Middle East, and the damage inflicted represents a significant achievement for the Israeli Air Force’s superiority in the region.
Additionally, Syrian Air Force bases were struck. One of the bases that was struck was the T4 Airport in the northern Damascus area, where two Syrian Air Force squadrons—the SU-22 squadron and the SU-24 squadron—were destroyed. Another base targeted was the “Ble” Airport, which housed three fighter squadrons. Approximately 1.5 kilometers from this base, a site used for storing surface-to-surface missiles and rockets was also struck.
Furthermore, the Israeli Air Force struck central manufacturing and storage sites, including a site in the Homs area. This site is the leading facility in Syria’s Scud missile project and is considered one of the most significant infrastructures in Syria’s manufacturing industry, “CERS”.
Iran has been pursuing nuclear weapons for decades, but began enriching uranium rapidly after President Joe Biden took office (though the Biden administration blamed President Donald Trump for withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal struck by President Barack Obama, which would have allowed Iran to emerge as a nuclear power anyway after about a decade). Israel and the U.S. have long considered a military strike on the nuclear program as a last resort.
The U.S. has discouraged Israel from pursuing such an attack, and Israel was deterred in the past by the presence of Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, which was thought to be able to launch thousands of rockets at Israel at once.
But with Israel’s stunning success against Hezbollah over the past few months, that deterrent is gone. In a recent retaliation against Iran for a massive ballistic missile attack on Israel, Israel attacked at least one nuclear facility.
Israel’s leaders may believe that the need for an attack is urgent, for two reasons. First, the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump has signaled that it wants to wrap up the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Second, Iran may conclude that it has no choice but to accelerate its development of nuclear weapons, having lost most of the other deterrents it attempted to create in its “ring of fire” of terrorist organizations surrounding Israel.
Previously, Israel would not have considered a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities without consulting the U.S. But in recent days, Israel attacked the Syrian military without waiting for the Biden administration to agree.
Israel is unlikely to wait for the lame-duck White House to weigh in, and may rely on the previous statements of President-elect Trump, who said earlier this year that Israel should attack Iran’s nuclear sites in response to its missile attacks.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.