A daring Israeli commando raid deep into Bashar Assad’s Syria in early September not only destroyed an Iranian factory producing missiles for Hezbollah to shoot into Israel, it may have been a test of a concept that puts all of Iran’s nuclear facilities at risk.
On the night of September 8-9, a 120-man unit of elite Israeli Air Force Shaldag commandos in CH-53 attacked the underground factory in the Masyaf area of Syria, west of Hama, using a combination of landing and fast roping.
This is a video of US Marines fast roping from the same type of helicopter used in the Israeli operation.
The site lies more than 125 miles north of the Israeli border and some 30 miles from Syria’s western coastline. The CH-53s flew in from the Mediterranean to evade Syria’s air defense system; as the CH-53 has a…