The Silence in Israel Shouldn't Be Ignored - Updated

Anyone familiar with military operations knows that when things go quiet, it is time to pay attention. The silence in Israel over the incident last Thursday in Syria has led to a number of questions, none of which Syria appears interested in answering, and to date one of the tightest censored military operations in the modern information age.

There are some clues though, piecing them together starts telling an interesting story, and allows us to speculate a bit on what is happening. Consider the following.

From the BBC:

During the early hours of last Thursday morning, a number of Israeli jets appear to have entered Syrian air-space from the Mediterranean Sea, possibly penetrating deep into the country.

Later unidentified drop tanks, which may have contained fuel for the planes, were found on Turkish soil near the Syrian border, indicating perhaps the Israeli jets' exit route.

From IsraelNationalNews.com:

Israeli TV Channel 1 said Tuesday that the IDF "definitely carried out an attack" against Syria last Thursday. The attack was significant, the channel's military affairs reporter said, and was probably carried out against a large and important target that justified taking this kind of extreme action at such a sensitive time in Israeli-Syrian relations.

The target hit was in the Deir Ez-Zour region in eastern Syria, near the Euphrates river. The attack was carried out by Israel Air Force (IAF) F-15i jets (The 'i' stands for 'Israel'), referred to in Hebrew as Ra'am, or 'thunder.' Anti-aircraft fire from the ground was ineffective, Channel 1 said.

From the Jerusalem Post

Despite official Turkish expressions of concern that an alleged IAF flyover in Syrian airspace early Thursday could escalate regional tensions, Israel received no formal protests from Ankara over the weekend, Israeli and Turkish diplomatic officials said Saturday night.

Reuters, quoting a diplomatic source in Ankara, said Turkey asked for clarification after two fuel tanks were found near its border with Syria. The jettisoned fuel tanks, pictures of which were carried in the top-selling Hurriyet newspaper, were found soon after Damascus alleged that Israel had violated Syrian airspace Wednesday evening.

The paper said the fuel tanks belonged to Israeli F-15I planes sent to gather intelligence. A Turkish diplomatic official said that Ankara had made no requests that its embassy in Tel Aviv file a protest over the incident with the Foreign Ministry, and he said that if clarifications were sought, which he could not confirm, they would have gone through military channels.

From the New York Times:

One Bush administration official said Israel had recently carried out reconnaissance flights over Syria, taking pictures of possible nuclear installations that Israeli officials believed might have been supplied with material from North Korea. The administration official said Israeli officials believed that North Korea might be unloading some of its nuclear material on Syria.

“The Israelis think North Korea is selling to Iran and Syria what little they have left,” the official said. He said it was unclear whether the Israeli strike had produced any evidence that might validate that belief.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a military action by another government.

So what do we make of this?

First, if you look at the map (courtesy of Stratfor), it looks like the IAF took a northern route to Deir Ez-Zour, bombed its target, and departed through the north. Given the Mtn ranges in northern Syria, this flight path would help conceal the IAF forces from the modern radar systems in the south as the planes flew to Deir Ez-Zour. If you calculate the fuel capacity of the F-15Is, account for drop tanks and refueling over the Med, the BBC report that the drop tanks were dropped on departure appears very credible.

Syria has filed a protest at the UN. This will no doubt result in a condemnation of Israel. With the lack of details, if the UN was interested in doing anything other than being critical of Israel, the UN should ask to inspect the target near Deir Ez-Zour that Israel hit with strikes for evidence. Without evidence, normal people wouldn't rush to judgment, but the UN isn't normal and Syria has no plans to produce any evidence of what was destroyed. After all, Israel probably has good photography to refute the evidence Syria provides.

At first I didn't find the nuclear angle very credible, but after reading Spook86 and getting some background on the relationship between Syria and North Korea, I began to think it is possible. When you factor in this report by the New York Sun, I'm starting to think Spook86 and the New York Times story are starting to look more plausible.

A rare statement by Kim Jong Il's regime, which denounced Israel's incursion into Syria last week, raised speculations about a possible North Korean role in Middle East tensions.

Pyongyang rarely issues public statements about world affairs, but on Tuesday, it became the only non-Muslim country to condemn Israel, calling its alleged air operation in Syria "a very dangerous provocation." The rare statement came just as press reports from Washington said Israel had recently used its air force in an attempt to document alleged transfers of North Korean nuclear technology to Syria.

Four years ago, a former U.N. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton — a State Department official at the time — made several references to nuclear cooperation between Syria and North Korea during a congressional briefing, said a Washington source familiar with the testimony, who asked that his name not be used.

I'm not very familiar with Deir Ez-Zour except I know there is a major bridge there that crosses the Euphrates River. However, none of this explains the silence coming from Israel. Under normal circumstances, the press would learn details of what Israel has done, but not this time. That tends to lend itself to the theory the operation isn't completed, a theory I think would best explain the silence. Several of the media reports, including the original CNN report, mentions the potential use of Israeli ground forces (most likely SOF). If that is true, the silence tends to imply the SOF are still in theater and still conducting an operation, and the potential exists this isn't over yet.

Update 1: Did Turkey support the operation conducted by Israel, according to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida, Yes.