l March 2 -- On June 7, 1981, eight Israeli F-16 fighter jets, protected by six F-15 escorts, dropped 16 2,000-pound bombs on the nearly completed Osirak nuclear reactor at the Tuwaitha complex in Iraq. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon saw the reactor as central

and Syria that gravely jeopardized the Jewish state; the 1976 hostage rescue at Entebbe, Uganda; the 1981 raid against Iraqi nuclear facilities at Osirak; and the similar raid against Syria in 2007. Van Creveld traces aerial fighting machines back to 18th-century ballooning and to the Wright brother

March 2 -- On June 7, 1981, eight Israeli F-16 fighter jets, protected by six F-15 escorts, dropped 16 2,000-pound bombs on the nearly completed Osirak nuclear reactor at the Tuwaitha complex in Iraq. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Defense Minister Arid Sharon saw the reactor as central

to Strike Iran Amos Yadlin February 29, 2012 -- ON July 7, 1981, I was one of eight Israeli fighter pilots who bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. As we sat in the briefing room listening to the army chief of staff, Rafael Eitan, before starting our planes' engines, I recalled a conversation