The report, based on sources from Western intelligence services suggest that the facility is located 12 kilometers to the north-west of Syria’s capital, Damascus, and is allegedly controlled by the Quds special forces unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRG).
Fox News noted that its journalists had obtained satellite images showing two hangars of 500 square meters each, and they were allegedly being used to store intermediate-range and short-range missiles. The broadcaster proceeded to say that those weapons were capable of reaching any point in Israel.
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However, the Fox News report turned out to be fiction, as a source from Iran’s Defense Ministry familiar with the case told Sputnik.
“Iran does not have military bases outside its territory, and its presence in Syria is limited to providing military advice; establishing a military base outside Iran’s borders requires an official and public approval of the government of this or that country, in particular Syria,” the source said.
According to the report by Fox News, last year another Iranian base was detected to the south of Damascus by satellites. The base was allegedly destroyed by an Israeli missile attack. An Iranian military official denied these allegations several weeks ago.
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It appears that Fox News has launched another batch of fake “horror” stories about Iran.
The Aim of Fake News
Political observer and expert on Middle East at the Center of World Research at Tehran’s University, Emad Abshenas, told Sputnik the reasons for the recent wave of disinformation by the United States concerning Iran’s presence in Syria.
“Iran doesn’t have military bases in Syria, and if at any point Tehran establishes a base there, it will be an open move, and only on official permission of the Syrian government in the framework of a signed agreement, which won’t be a secret. Besides, the IRG are not as short-sighted to deploy a base somewhere where journalists or informants of Fox News can easily detect it.”
Abshenas added that the United States needed such “horror” stories to “justify their illegal presence in Syria under the guise of protection of its interests and those of Israel from an alleged Iranian military presence.”
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According to the expert, Washington is using this to explain why Israel “invaded” Syria and conducted airstrikes there.
“The US decrees to its own media to overblow a story around the military operation in Syria’s Afrin, the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces in Eastern Ghouta, displaying terrorists as victims of Assad’s bloody army.”
The observer concluded that the United States could not accept its “failure” in Syria over the victories by the Iran-Russia-Syria coalition in the fight against terrorists, “therefore Washington attempts to cause harm by all means.”
While Russia, Iran and Turkey have been working together to facilitate the possible transition to a political settlement in Syria and restore peace and stability in the war-torn country, the US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what it deems as Daesh targets in Syria without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate since 2014. Syria, for its part, considers the coalition’s presence a violation of the country’s national sovereignty.
