Syria threatens to retaliate after Israeli air strikes - live updates

The Guardian

"Israeli air strikes

Expect to see more Israeli air strikes against Syria, warns analyst Nicholas Noe, who is concerned that the crisis threatens to escalate into a regional conflagration.

Noe, co-founder of MidEastwire.com and expert on Hezbollah, said: "Unfortunately if the past is any guide to the future we are in for more Israeli air strikes, and a political process to settle this is not going to be forthcoming."

Speaking to the Guardian from Tunis he said:

All of the factors exist for a much wider escalation and conflagration … It is not really important for us to understand exactly what was hit – what it is very clear is that there is activity in Syria. Things are moving very quickly … The fundamental point is that there are these [chemical] weapons and there are these factions that are extreme. That’s the catastrophic mix that we are all facing, and the Israelis took action. We knew this was coming because the underlining factors for greater involvement by outside powers was simply building.
There are chemical weapons sites in Syria – perhaps the third largest stockpiles in the world – and you have an array of actors, some of them committed to very extreme forms of political action. The only way there could not be more air strikes is if the situation stabilises, and there is very little prospect of the situation stabilising at all.
There are signs that everyone is frightened, and that’s why you can read the Israeli strike as a note of caution to the international community … Hopefully the Americans and the Russians get the message and they try to use their levers of influence to pull everyone back from the brink. If they don’t it is going to be very hard to restrain this activity ...
The fundamental problem is that the Pandora’s box has been opened so wide – there are so many actors on the ground that don’t care about finding a political settlement, and they have the weapons to make this a prolonged struggle – that its very hard for these great powers to magically turn off the spigot.

Noe suggested that Israel is as concerned about chemical weapons reaching al-Qaida-linked rebel groups in Syria such as Jabhat al-Nusra, as it is about weapons reaching Bashar al-Assad’s ally Hezbollah.
He added:

Unfortunately I don’t think this extraordinarily right wing Israeli leadership is interested in sending messages of peace.
They see some of the greatest enemies to the north, Hezbollah and Syria, as very vulnerable and I’m greatly concerned that there is a strong desire among parts of the Israeli establishment who want to use this opportunity to strike some strong blows against their strategic enemies.
On the other side … there is an increasing ascent of people wanting to pull the whole temple down on their enemies, and that’s very dangerous......"