(CNN) -- Israeli warplanes struck a military base
near the Syrian port city of Latakia this week, an Obama administration
official told CNN on Thursday.
An explosion at a missile
storage site in the area was reported in the Middle Eastern press, but
an attack has not been confirmed by the Israeli government.
The target, according to
the Obama administration official, was missiles and related equipment
the Israelis felt might be transferred to the Lebanon-based militant
group Hezbollah. The official declined to be identified because of the
sensitive nature of the information.
There was some confusion
about the timing of the attack, with some reports saying it happened
Wednesday, and others saying Thursday.
When asked for comment, an Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman told CNN: "We don't refer to foreign reports."
Israel has been accused
several other times this year of launching airstrikes inside Syria,
including once in January. In the January incident, a U.S. official said
Israeli fighter jets bombed a Syrian convoy suspected of moving weapons
to Hezbollah.
Syrian rebels warn against talks with regime
Israel's military did not
comment on any of the allegations at the time, but has long said it
would target any transfer of weapons to Hezbollah or other groups
designated as terrorists, as well as any effort to smuggle Syrian
weapons into Lebanon that could threaten Israel.
Thursday's reports of a blast come amid a Syrian civil war in
which Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim militant group, has been helping
Syrian government forces. Syria's government is led by Bashar al-Assad, a
member of the Shiite offshoot Alawite sect; the rebels and other
militants fighting al-Assad's forces and Hezbollah are largely made up
of Sunni Muslims.
The Syrian conflict
began in March 2011 after government forces cracked down on peaceful
protesters during the Arab Spring movement and is now a full-blown civil
war. The United Nations estimates that more than 100,000 people have
died in the conflict.
International inspectors
are trying to ensure that Syria eliminates its chemical weapons
stockpile by the middle of next year. Syria agreed to the program under
international pressure earlier this year.
One of the monitoring groups, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said Thursday
that Syria has destroyed all its declared chemical weapons mixing,
filling and production facilities, and all of the chemical weapons at 21
inspected sites have been placed under seal.
The watchdog body's announcement of the facilities' destruction meant that Syria met a key deadline in the elimination program.
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