AFP: An air strike Syria accuses Israel of staging on its territory is a warning both to Damascus and to Iran, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton said Sunday. JERUSALEM, Sept 16, 2007 (AFP) – An air strike Syria accuses Israel of staging on its territory is a warning both to Damascus and to Iran, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton said Sunday.
“I think this is a clear message not only to Syria, this is a clear message to Iran as well that its continued efforts to acquire nuclear weapons are not going to go unanswered,” Bolton told Israel’s 10 television channel.
Damascus said its air defences fired on Israeli warplanes which had dropped munitions deep inside its territory in the early hours of September 6, and it has protested to the UN Security Council.
Israel has maintained a wall of silence over the event.
But on Sunday it boasted that it had recovered its “deterrent capability” after an air strike in Syria triggered warnings of retaliation and intense media speculation over the aim of the operation.
“The new situation affects the entire region, including Iran and Syria,” military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told parliament’s powerful foreign affairs and defence committee, local media reported.
Bolton underlined that “It will be very unusual for Israel to conduct such a military operation inside Syria other (than) for a very high value target and certainly a Syrian effort in nuclear weapon area will qualify.”
“The USA should welcome this activity,” he said.
The United States and Israel accuse Iran of covertly carrying out a nuclear weapons programme, a charge Tehran vehemently denies.
