Syria: IDF reveals daring raid on Iranian missile factory

Elite Air Force unit breached underground facility 124 miles from Israel, laid explosives and escaped unscathed after 2.5 hours, in one of most complex ever operations in enemy territory

The Israeli Air Force on Thursday revealed details and footage from one of its most daring and complex commando operations ever, in which 120 members of special forces units raided and destroyed an underground Iranian missile manufacturing plant deep in Syria in September.

At the time, the regime of Bashar al-Assad was still in power in Syria, and Israel had not yet launched its devastating campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Some of the details of the September 8 operation previously reported by foreign media outlets — including the name of the raid — are now known to have been wrong, or slightly incorrect.

The raid — dubbed internally by the Israel Defense Forces “Operation Many Ways” — was aimed at destroying an underground facility used by Iranian forces to manufacture precision missiles for Hezbollah in Lebanon and for the Assad regime in Syria.

The facility, codenamed by the military “Deep Layer,” was dug into a mountain at the Scientific Studies and Research Center, known as CERS or SSRC, in the Masyaf area of Syria, west of Hama. The site lies more than 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of the Israeli border, and some 45 kilometers (28 miles) from Syria’s western coastline.

By Emanuel Fabian from Times of Israel.