Israel used spying equipment it planted off the Syrian coast to monitor Russian naval movements in the Mediterranean, The Sunday Times of London reported.

Earlier this month Syria’s state television reported that Israeli spy equipment was uncovered monitoring a “sensitive site” on its Mediterranean coast. The footage showed a camera, six large batteries, cables and transmitters, along with fake rocks used to camouflage the equipment.

The equipment was planted, the report says, on an uninhabited island in the Mediterranean, opposite to the Syrian port city of Tartus, near a Russian naval base. Citing a report on Lebanon’s pro-Syrian Al-Manar television station, the Sunday Times said that the gear could be used to track the movements of Russian warships and relay the pictures in real time.

The Tartus base was leased by the former Soviet Union in 1971.

The equipment, the Times report suggested, was planted on the island by Israel’s elite naval commando unit, Flotilla 13.

For more, go to Haaretz

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