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Syria says reserves right to retaliate

Syria’s foreign ministry on Thursday complained to the UN over what it says was an Israeli air strike on a military research centre near Damascus, adding that it reserves the right to retaliate.

Although Israel and Syria are technically still at war, the ministry’s official complaint evoked a 1974 disengagement agreement between the neighbours, state news agency SANA said.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has summoned Iqbal Singha, commander of the UN Observer Disengagement Observer Force... and informed him of an official protest over the Israeli violation of the disengagement agreement of 1974,” the ministry said.

The ministry said Israel “and the states that protect it at the UN Security Council” are responsible for the air strike, and “affirms Syria’s right to defend itself and its territory and sovereignty”.

The ministry called on “all the competent UN bodies to take the necessary steps given this grave Israeli violation, and to guarantee that it will not happen again.”

The ministry denounced “the failure of the Security Council to take responsibility to prevent this grave Israeli attack, which poses serious threats to stability in the Middle East and security in the world”.

On Wednesday evening, the Syrian army said in a statement an Israeli air raid targetted a military research centre, killing two people.

In 2007, a bombing raid on an undeclared Syrian nuclear facility at Al-Kibar was widely understood to have been an Israeli strike, but it was never acknowledged by the Jewish state.