Operation Babylon... I never knew this!?

**Jimanuel Boogustus** · 11-04-2010 01:41 PM

Operation Opera - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Babylon (Codeword: Opera (Hebrew: מבצע אופרה‎, Mivtza Opera)) was a 1981 surprise Israeli air strike that destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor under construction in Osirak (French: Osirak; Iraqi: Tammuz 1).
In the late 1970s, Iraq purchased an "Osiris"-class nuclear reactor from France. Israeli military intelligence suspected this was for the purpose of plutonium production to further an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Israeli intelligence also believed that the summer of 1981 would be the last chance to destroy the reactor before it would be loaded with nuclear fuel.
On 7 June 1981, a flight of Israeli Air Force F-16A fighter aircraft, with an escort of F-15As, bombed and heavily damaged the Osirak reactor. The attack took place about three weeks before the elections for the Knesset.

**Jimanuel Boogustus** · 02-22-2011 12:22 PM

Bump

**Master** · 02-22-2011 09:15 PM

Surprised a film starring steven segal was not made about this.

**CFH** · 02-23-2011 06:00 AM

I knew about it, but I've studied some modern Israeli/Palestinian history.

There are hundreds of relatively unknown operations like that in the annals of military history.

**Dizaster** · 02-23-2011 06:14 AM

Who knows if the world would be different today if that reactor was allowed to be put online for Iraq...

**Dizaster** · 02-23-2011 06:26 AM

Originally Posted by Dizaster

Who knows if the world would be different today if that reactor was allowed to be put online for Iraq...

Oh, I just read more and find that it was repaired after that anyway, and obviously came online then...
And was designed to be unfit for the purpose of making nuclear weapons.... But Iraq is dodgy so wouldn't put it past them to figure out a way...