Initial reports indicated that the convoy was struck near Lebanon. Rebels claimed they hit a research facility. Now it seems like the Israelis hit the research facility--but only in the process of hitting the convoy parked by that chemical and biological warfare research facility:
While the main target of the attack on Wednesday seems to have been SA-17 missiles and their launchers — which the Israelis feared were about to be moved to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon — video shown on Syrian television backs up assertions that the research center north of Damascus also suffered moderate damage.
That complex, the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, has been the target of American and Western sanctions for more than a decade because of intelligence suggesting that it was the training site for engineers who worked on chemical and biological weaponry.
A senior United States military official, asked about reports that the research center had been targeted, said that any damage was likely “due to the bombs which targeted the vehicles” carrying the antiaircraft weapons, and from “the secondary explosions from the missiles.”
What? The Syrians just happened to stage a convoy of weapons for Hezbollah at one of their WMD facilities? In what world does that make sense?
You'd really let a bunch of drivers into such a critical facility to park their trucks near the chemical and biological warfare buildings? Close enough that very accurate smart bombs--I assume--would actually damage the nearby buildings (plus the secondary explosions, of course)? Really?
Am I out of line in wondering if the Syrians and Iranians were loading chemical or biological weapons into that convoy along with the anti-aircraft weapons?
And what of the initial rebel claim that they hit the research facility?
Further, the Iranians seem more worked up than than usual over this attack--more so than losses in Sudan and at sea when Israel has intercepted or attacked Iranian weapons deliveries. This seemed more important to them.
But the missiles, SA-17s, are said to be too large for Hezbollah to really use effectively. So maybe the convoy wasn't going to Lebanon at all and so the convoy wasn't there to pick up chemical weapons, too.
Could the convoy of SA-17s been headed to the WMD facility to defend it rather than preparing to stage from it to go to Lebanon? The missiles do seem more suited to defending a high-value facility. Is that why Israel bombed both assets? To hit the facility before the anti-aircraft missile systems could be set up?
In this explanation, the motivation of preventing weapons from going to Hezbollah is just a convenient excuse to cover attacking Syrian territory.
