Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Monday that Iran had used 10 military facilities in Syria to produce advanced missiles and weapons to arm groups working for it, accusing Tehran of controlling Syria’s military industries.
Speaking at a conference in New York, Gantz presented a map of what he said were military sites for the Center for Scientific Studies and Research, a Syrian government agency involved in manufacturing missiles and weapons for Iran.
“Iran has transformed the (Syrian) Center for Scientific Studies and Research into facilities for the production of missiles and medium, long-range and accurate weapons, provided to Hezbollah and Iran’s proxies. In other words, the center has become another Iranian front and a factory for advanced strategic weapons,” Gantz said.
Gantz added that the Masyaf facility in particular is used to produce advanced missiles.
To illustrate, I revealed a map showing over 10 different facilities in the “CERS” military industry in Syria – including the underground “Masyaf” facility. These sites are used by Iran to produce advanced missiles and weapons for its proxies. pic.twitter.com/TQWBPUkZQw
— Benny Gantz (@gantzbe) September 12, 2022
According to the Israeli minister, Iran is also working to establish places to manufacture missiles and weapons in Lebanon and Yemen.
And he added, “If this trend does not stop, then within a decade, there will be advanced Iranian industries throughout the region to produce weapons and spread terror.”
He accused Tehran of arming its proxies in the region with more than one billion dollars annually, adding that lifting sanctions on Iran would double the funds allocated to “agent terrorism.”
Neither Iran nor Syria has commented on Gantz’s speech so far, but Damascus has previously refrained from commenting on such accusations, at a time when Tehran has denied establishing weapons production capabilities in regions in the Middle East.
For several years, Israel has launched attacks on what it describes as Iranian-linked targets in Syria.
Israeli strikes have repeatedly targeted Masyaf, an area in western Hama province that Gantz said has an underground weapons production facility that threatens Israel and the region.
Diplomatic and intelligence sources in the region told Archyde.com that strikes attributed to Israel have recently increased on Syrian airports to disrupt Tehran’s increasing use of air supply lines to deliver weapons to its allies in Syria and Lebanon, including the Lebanese Hezbollah.