(Reuters) - Iran called on the region to unite against Israel after a reported attack on Syria and said it was ready to train the Damascus government's army.
Israel carried out its second air strike in days on Syria early on Sunday, targeting Iranian-supplied missiles headed for Lebanon's Hezbollah, a Western intelligence source said.
Tehran on Sunday denied the attack was aimed at "its missiles destined for Hezbollah resistance fighters in Lebanon," according to the Islamic state's English-language Press TV.
Iran has supported its ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his efforts to suppress a rebellion that has raged for more than two years and which Tehran and Damascus say is being waged by Western-backed "terrorists".
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast urged countries in the region to stand against the "assault", the Fars news agency reported on Sunday.
Iranian army ground forces commander Ahmad Reza Pourdastan said on Sunday Iran was ready to support its ally.
"Syria has a powerful army and with the structure and experience it has against the Zionist regime (Israel) it can definitely defend itself and there is no need for intervention by other countries," Pourdastan said, according to Fars.
"But if they need training we can help them," he added.
Iran has denied supporting Assad militarily, although Western diplomats have said Iranian weapons pour into Syria via Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in January Tehran would consider an attack on Syria an attack on itself.
Reuters
"The economic situation is worsening from month to month, and unemployment has reached a level that puts democratic structures ever more in doubt," he said.
"The Germans have not yet realised that southern Europe, including France, will be forced by their current misery to fight back against German hegemony sooner or later," he said, blaming much of the crisis on Germany's wage squeeze to gain export share.
Mr Lafontaine said on the parliamentary website of Germany's Left Party that Chancellor Angela Merkel will "awake from her self-righteous slumber" once the countries in trouble unite to force a change in crisis policy at Germany's expense.
His prediction appeared confirmed as French finance minister Pierre Moscovici yesterday proclaimed the end of austerity and a triumph of French policy, risking further damage to the tattered relations between Paris and Berlin.
"Austerity is finished. This is a decisive turn in the history of the EU project since the euro," he told French TV. "We're seeing the end of austerity dogma. It's a victory of the French point of view."
Mr Moscovici's comments follow a deal with Brussels to give France and Spain two extra years to meet a deficit target of 3pc of GDP. The triumphalist tone may enrage hard-liners in Berlin and confirm fears that concessions will lead to a slippery slope towards fiscal chaos.
German Vice-Chancellor Philipp Rösler lashed out at the European Commission over the weekend, calling it "irresponsible" for undermining the belt-tightening agenda.
The Franco-German alliance that has driven EU politics for half a century is in ruins after France's Socialist Party hit out at the "selfish intransigence" of Mrs Merkel, accusing her thinking only of the "German savers, her trade balance, and her electoral future".
It is unclear whether the EU retreat from austerity goes much beyond rhetoric. Mr Moscovici conceded last week that the budget delay merely avoids extra austerity cuts to close the shortfall in tax revenues caused by the recession.
The new policy allows automatic fiscal stabilisers to kick in, but France will stay the course on the original austerity. "It is not about relaxing the effort to cut spending. There will no extra adjustment just to satisfy a number," he said.
Mr Lafontaine said he backed EMU but no longer believes it is sustainable. "Hopes that the creation of the euro would force rational economic behaviour on all sides were in vain," he said, adding that the policy of forcing Spain, Portugal, and Greece to carry out internal devaluations was a "catastrophe".
Mr Lafontaine was labelled "Europe's Most Dangerous Man" by The Sunafter he called for a "united Europe" and the "end of the nation state" in 1998. The euro was launched on January 1 1999, with bank notes following three years later. He later left the Social Democrats to found the Left Party.
The Telegraph
Preparedness at Israeli embassies was stepped up on Sunday over fears that Hezbollah may stage an attack as retaliation for Israeli airstrikes on Syria over the weekend.
In Israel, requests for gas-mask kits were up fourfold as fears grew of a possible Syrian response, though officials said the likelihood of a Syrian response is low.
Hezbollah, which was reportedly the intended recipient of the Iranian missile shipments stored at sites targeted in Damascus on Friday and Sunday, has been known to strike at Israeli and Jewish targets around the world, including a bus of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year. The group is also believed to be linked to attacks and attempted attacks on Israeli embassies in Georgia and India.
Distribution centers and post offices across the country said that the number of requests for masks was four times that of usual. According to Maariv, Israel has in its possession enough gas masks for approximately 60 percent of the population.
The IDF also took steps to prepare for a possible Syrian or Hezbollah response to Sunday morning’s airstrike, when it deployed two Iron Dome missile defense batteries in the north of the country on Sunday morning.
One Iron Dome battery was deployed in Safed and the other in Haifa, where officials convened an emergency meeting over gearing up for a possible response.
The IDF also shut down civilian airspace over the north of the country, closing Haifa’s regional airport.
The Iron Dome system has proved highly effective in stopping short-range rocket fire, intercepting 84 percent of the incoming rockets from Gaza during Operation Pillar of Defense last November.
Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said Sunday, May 5, that the strike at Syria overnight represented a "declaration of war" by Israel. Russian and Iranian media earlier predicted full-scale Middle East hostilities involving Israel erupting in the coming hours, in the wake of Israel’s renewed strikes against Iranian missiles bound for Hizballah and other targets around Damascus. Russian sources reported rumors that President Bashar Assad was on the point of declaring war on Israel.
Russia Today claimed that an Israeli rocket strike Sunday caused heavy Syrian casualties – according to rumors, at least 300 members of the Syrian Army’s 501st Unit dead and hundreds filling four Damascus hospitals. DEBKAfile: If this is confirmed, then the unit which operates the chemical weapon facility at the Barzeh district north of Damascus at the foot of Mt. Qassioun was hit. Israel’s security cabinet holds emergency session.
The same Russian source reported that Syrian security forces cordoned off the sites of the explosions against entry. Residents reported after the blasts that the ground moved with the force of a 4 magnitude earthquake.
Shortly after the Israel attacks in the Damascus area Sunday, the IDF posted additional Iron Dome anti-missile batteries in Haifa and Safed to defend those northern towns against incoming Syrian and Hizballah rockets.
Low-ranking Syrian and Iranian officials responded to the Israeli attacks on Syria: Deputy Information minister His Al-Yiftah commented by saying that “a new foreign element had entered the Syrian conflict overnight and this would cause war.”
In Tehran, an Iranian foreign ministry official condemned “Israeli aggression on Syria and accused Israel of fomenting instability and ethnic discord in the region. The commander of the ground forces asked if the war was not about to burst out of Syria’s borders, without answering the question.
An Israeli official confirmed to AFP that Israeli had Sunday conducted a second round of strikes in three days on advanced weapons including Iranian F-110 weapons bound for Hizballah in transit at Damascus international airport. Syrian TV reported only an attack on the Jamraya military research center just north of Damascus. This was the same facility which Israeli planes attacked in January.
DEBKAfile
Commander of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces Brigadier General Ahmad-Reza Pourdastan says Iran is ready to train the Syrian army should Damascus require assistance.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Pourdastan added that the Syrian army has gained experience during years of conflict with the occupying regime of Israel, and has the ability to defend itself with no need for foreign assistance.
Pourdastan’s remarks came as the Syrian state television reported on Sunday that Israel has carried out an airstrike against the Jamraya Research Center, located northwest of the capital, Damascus. The center had been targeted by another Israeli airstrike back in January.
The Sunday attack came shortly after Tel Aviv confirmed that its warplanes had hit another target in Syria on Friday.
The unrest in Syria began over two years ago, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel have so far lost their lives. The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country.
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad said in April that the situation in the country was improving as the army enjoys popular support in the fight against terrorism.
PressTV
Bulldozers are clearing away rubble from buildings razed to the ground by Israeli airstrikes near Damascus, as Syria pledges retaliation for the 'declaration of war'.
Pictures have emerged from Syria showing the damage caused to buildings, including some forming part of a chicken farm, by an attack in Al-Hama - close to Jamraya where a research centre was targeted.
Senior government ministers in Syria warned its neighbour it risked engulfing the Middle East in conflict after carrying out airstrikes twice in the past three days.
Aftermath: Bulldozers work to remove rubble after the Israeli airstrike in the Al-Hama area near Damascus
Destruction: The damage left at a chicken farm building following the attack by Israel on Syria
Rubble: Syria has branded the attacks a 'declaration of war' and pledged retaliation against Israel
Razed to the ground: A chicken which survived the airstrike stands among the flattened buildings
Faisal al Mekdad, Syria's deputy foreign minister, pledged that the country would retaliate against Israel 'in its own time and way' after a weapons factory and other military facilities were bombed.
Israel claimed it was targeting Iranian weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. But Syrian officials accused Israel of carrying out 'terrorist acts' on behalf of jihadi groups trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
Israel's second raid on Syria in 48 hours signalled a massive escalation of its involvement in the two-year civil war. Video footage showed dramatic orange-flamed blasts over Damascus's skyline after weapons dumps were hit in the raids, which also killed several people.
Eyewitness Mohammed Saeed said: 'The explosions were so strong the earth shook under us.'
Footage from Lebanon's Al Manar TV, affiliated with Hezbollah, shows smoke rising from what is purportedly an ammunition depot following an air strike in Dimas
A soldier points to a crater following an air strike in Jamraya on May 5
Free Syrian Army fighters, on a pick-up truck, head towards the frontline where clashes with forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad are taking place in the al-Ziyabiya area, in Damascus
Rebel fighters: The clashes are taking place in the al-Ziyabiya area, in Damascus
Syria said three military sites had been hit: the research centre at Jamraya; a paragliding airport in the al-Dimas area of Damascus, and a site in Maysaloun.
A statement from the Syrian Foreign Ministry said: 'The Israeli attack led to the fall of a number of martyrs and wounded from the ranks of Syrian citizens, and led to widespread destruction in these sites and in the civilian districts near to them.
'This leaves no room for doubt Israel is the beneficiary, the mover and sometime the executor of the terrorist acts which Syria is witnessing and which target it as a state and people directly or through its tools inside.'
Syrian information minister Omran al-Zohbi warned the attack made the Middle East 'more dangerous' and 'opens the door wide to all possibilities'.
He added that Syria had the duty 'to defend its people by all available means'.
Rockets: Large explosions were reported in Mount Qassioun, a military site, near the Syrian capital of Damascus early on Sunday (web photo reportedly of the blast). Syrian TV claims Israeli rockets were to blame
Explosion: Syria says Israel fired rockets at a military research center in the Damascus suburb of Jamraya, (a photo shared on social media reportedly of the explosion). The Israel Defense Forces declined to comment
Attack: Israeli warplanes began bombing suspected chemical weapons sites in Syria on Thursday (pictured an F-15I tactical fighter jet taking at the Hatzerim Air Force in southern Israel in 2012)
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2319645/After-airstrikes-Scenes-devastation-left-Israeli-rockets-Syria-pledges-retaliation-declaration-war.html#ixzz2SSzqcMMB
