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Ain es Saheb airstrike
Part of the al-Aqsa intifada
IAF video of the strike
Date October 5, 2003 Location Ain es Saheb, Syria Result Successful strike on alleged militant site
Belligerents
Israeli Air Force	Syria Palestinian militants (Israeli claim)
Strength
Several F-16s	Unknown
Casualties and losses
	1 injured - munitions destroyed

The Ain es Saheb airstrike occurred on October 5, 2003 and was the first overt Israeli military operation in Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Operation

In response to the suicide bombing in Haifa 12 hours earlier by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, four Israeli Air Force 110 "Knights of the North" Squadron F-16Cs attacked an alleged Palestinian militant training camp about 15 miles northwest of the Syrian capital Damascus. A single civilian guard is reportedly injured in the strike, the first in Syrian territory for nearly thirty years. The jets took off from Ramat David Airbase at 03:00 and headed north over the Mediterranean before turning east, crossing the coastline into Lebanon and approaching the target from the west. It is uncertain whether the aircraft actually crossed the border into Syria proper as the exact type of munitions used is unknown and the target is located close to the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Militant camp claims

The IDF claimed the camp was used to train recruits in bomb assembly and guerrilla warfare and has released footage of the camp taken from the Al-Arabia TV station showing hundreds of weapons and underground tunnels packed with arms and ammunition. Both Syria and the Islamic Jihad denied Israeli claims, while an official of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC) said the camp belongs to his group but has been long abandoned. Palestinian sources in Beirut, however, report the facility belongs to Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP, not to be mistaken with the PFLP-GC) and had at the same time served as a training base for the Islamic Jihad and Hamas. These same sources reported a weapons workshop at the site, lending support to reports by the attacking pilots of secondary explosions.

See also

• Operation Orchard
• 2008 Abu Kamal raid

External links

• IAF Operations During The Al-Aqsa Intifada
• Satellite Imagery of the target