Israel disputes U.S. envoy, says it warned Syria before striking airbase over Turkish military buildup
According to Defense Minister Katz, after Syria failed to heed the warning, he and Netanyahu authorized the strike, calling U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack's account inaccurate: 'Erdogan was caught with his hand in the cookie jar and was forced to back down'
Israel struck the Abu al-Duhur military airfield in northern Syria. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) carried out the strike after receiving intelligence that Turkey planned to place a radar with its troops at the Syrian base.
The US special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, said Israel did not warn the US before the strike, despite fears of escalation with Turkey. He suggested that Israel may have been trying to provoke a conflict with Turkey.
The Israeli Prime Minister's office said the base was attacked because Syria was "on the verge of breaching" an agreement by allowing Turkish troops to deploy there. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said they had passed on intelligence information to the US before the strike and that Barrack's comments were "full of inaccuracies".
Brief written by urgent.news from Jerusalem Post, Associated Press, Winnipeg Free Press, Free Malaysia Today, Haaretz — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
