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Mossad blamed for death of Syrian weapons expert
The New York Times has reported that Israel orchestrated the attack on a Syrian missile scientist on Saturday night.
A senior official from a Middle Eastern intelligence agency told the New York Times that Aziz Asbar was killed by a car bomb in Masyaf in Hama province, which was carried out by the Mossad, Israel’s secret intelligence agency.
Asbar was a leading figure in the Syrian regime’s chemical-weapons production programme and director of Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Centre, which was targeted in an air strike in September 2017 and is subject to financial sanctions from the US and France.
The New York Times report said that Israeli intelligence believed: “Mr. Asbar led the secret unit known as Sector 4 [a top-secret weapons-development unit] at the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Centre. He was said to have free access to the presidential palace in Damascus and was collaborating with Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, and other Iranians to begin production of precision-guided missiles in Syria by retrofitting heavy Syrian SM600 Tishreen rockets.”