Eighteen days after a mysterious Israeli air raid on a Syrian target that neither country has so far identified, near the town of Deir ez-Zor in the north-eastern desert on the Euphrates river, an air-raid siren wailed in Damascus, the capital. Barely anyone looked up. Syrians are used to being on a war footing with their neighbour and the sirens are regularly tested. While the Western media speculated excitedly over exactly what was hit and why, most Syrians accept the official version of events-or at least accept that it may be a while before they know the full story.rnRumours and theories still swirl. Missiles on their way to Hizbullah, the Shia movement that Syria backs in Lebanon? A nuclear reactor in the early stages of construction? Were North Korean nuclear technicians involved? A full three weeks after the attack, President Bashar Assad gave a supposedly definitive account to the bbc: "They bombed buildings and constructions [sic] related to the military, but it's not used, it's under construction, so there are no people in it, there is no army." Only the next day did Israel confirm that it had, indeed, hit a military installation.rnSyria's foreign minister confusingly said the place was agricultural, not military.
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